Produced and funded by the Red Sea International Film Festival, the anthology film furthers the Festival’s commitment to daring new work by Saudi directors.
The Red Sea International Film Festival is backing five Saudi women directors as they come together for ‘Untitled Omnibus Feature,’ a major new anthology film. The project will enjoy its world premiere at the inaugural Festival in March 2020 as part of a broad programme of innovative Saudi content.
The film is a significant platform for new Saudi voices; the five shorts are shot in the Kingdom and focus on women behind and in front of the camera. As well as the five directors, women lead roles across production.
The Saudi directors involved in the project are Hind Alfahhad, Jowaher Alamri, Noor Alameer, Sara Mesfer, and Fatima Al-Banawi. Award-winning Palestinian filmmaker Suha Arraf is screenwriting supervisor.
The production crews assembled across the main team, as well as for each short, are women-dominated, including two out of three coordinating producers, and four out of five producers on the film teams.
The five directors were selected following a pitching process. The Red Sea International Film Festival worked with Saudi production company Cinepoetics to attract a diverse range of stories created by established directors and promising newcomers.
The final five projects were selected for their engaging narratives and strong female leads, with their stories representative of the distinctive voices found across the Kingdom. Each women-centred narrative is an intimate character portrait.
Together, their varied settings and storylines display the diversity of the Saudi contemporary film scene, with the directors hailing from across the Kingdom and the films set in cities, including Mecca, Medinah, Jeddah, and Riyadh.
