Directed by Amer Al Kamel, the film follows a young Saudi man who returns home from his scholarship, only to discover that his family has drastically changed from how he remembered them.
Amer Al Kamel’s upcoming Arabic-language psychological thriller Scholarship will premiere on September 19, 2024.
The film features Baraa Alem, Naif Al Thaferi, Habis Hussain, Leen Khashgji, Yasmine Kenzi, Hamad Abu Shaaban, Muhammad Ajim, Ibtisam Al-Harbi, Tala Bassiouni, Nour Yahya, Al-Qahtani and Heba Zaini.
Scholarship tells the story of Hamad, a Saudi student studying in New York in 2010. After being away on a scholarship, Hamad returns to Saudi Arabia only to find his family drastically changed. As he struggles with unexplained, eerie occurrences, his sense of reality starts to unravel. Torn between parental expectations and strange happenings, Hamad’s once-promising future quickly spirals into a nightmare, where the lines between imagination and reality blur in terrifying ways.
The film’s multicultural setting and intense narrative provide a regional story with universal appeal.
Speaking about the film, Amer Al Kamel explained: “This film is about the mind’s power to play tricks on you when you’re under pressure. Scholarship dives into the experience of isolation and cultural displacement and amplifies that fear in a way audiences will feel deep in their bones.”
