The Red Sea International Film Festival has unveiled the bulk of the line-up for its fourth edition, which will showcase 120 films from 81 territories from December 5 to 14 in the port city of Jeddah.
The festival will open with Egyptian director Karim Shenawy’s The Tale Of Daye’s Family (aka Light) about an 11-year-old Nubian albino boy with a beautiful voice, who faces adversity due to his unique appearance.
Abandoned by his father and bullied by his peers, he dreams of following in the footsteps of his idol, singer and actor Mohamed Mounir. When he gets a chance to audition for The Voice, Daye and his family embark on a perilous 1,000-mile journey from Southern Egypt to Cairo.
Michael Gracey’s semi-biographical feature Better Man, inspired by Robbie Williams and portraying the pop icon as a chimpanzee, will close the festival.
Johnny Depp’s Modi, Three Days on the Wing of Madness – which was supported by the festival’s parent body the Red Sea Film Foundation – and employed participants of its apprenticeship program as crew, will also screen in a special awards night gala.
Star power will also be assured on the red carpet through this year’s Red Sea honorees: Academy Award winning actress and producer Viola Davis (The Woman King, Fences) and Egyptian superstar Mona Zaki, whose recent credits include Flight 404, which is Egypt’s Oscar entry this year.
Aside from being honored, Davis will also be at the festival as the co-founder of JVL Media, the full-service production/media packaging firm and publishing house she co-founded with Julius Tennon and Lavaille Lavette. Some 75 companies hailing from 18 different companies are taking stands at the market this year.
The company will attend the festival’s Souk market and feature in the industry talks programming – exploring storytelling trends and funding in the region and beyond. The festival revealed that this year the program is being put together in collaboration with CAA Media Finance for the first time.
Starry titles set for Gala screenings include Peter Chelsom’s A Sudden Case Of Christmas, with its star Danny Devito expected to hit the red carpet in Jeddah, Pablo Larrain’s biopic Maria, starring Angelina Jolie as iconic tragic opera singer Maria Callas; Mehdi Idir’s Monsieur Aznavour, starring Tahar Rahim as the French crooner; and Thierry Teston and Lisa Azeulos’ Jane Fonda-narrated doc My Way, and We Live In Time with Florence Pugh and Andrew Garfield, and Anderson .Paak’s mainly South Korea-set musical film K-Pops!, which shot partly in Saudi Arabia‘s world heritage site region of AlULa. .
The festival has yet to unveil what talent will be in attendance but it set a high bar for starry red carpets in its first three editions. The jury and its high-profile In Conversations strand have also yet to be unveiled.
The main competition will feature 15 titles from the Middle East, Africa and Asia.
A number of titles, which have already created buzz on the festival circuit, will have their MENA premieres such as Palestinian director Mahdi Fleifel’s To A Land Unknown, which debuted at Cannes Directors’ Fortnight; Afghan filmmaker Roya Sadat’s Sima’s Song, exploring the evolution of women’s rights during the Russian occupation of Afghanistan in the 1970s, and Indian director Reema Kagti’s comedy Superboys of Malegaon, based on the true story of a group of amateur filmmakers who came together to create a film that honors their city, and Iraqi-Austrian filmmaker Kurdwin Ayub’s Moon.
This year will see the festival return to Jeddah’s historic Al Balad district, after two editions at the Ritz-Carlton while the headquarters for its parent body the Red Sea Film Foundation were being built. The festival’s unveiled its promotional video for this edition, shot against the backdrop of the gentrified Al Balad quarter to give a taste of what participants and spectators can expect.
2024 Line-up TITLE/director
Red Sea: Competition
SUPERBOYS OF MALEGAON
Reema Kagti
HANAMI
Denise Fernandes
TO A LAND UNKNOWN
Mahdi Fleifel
MOON
Kurdwin Ayub
SONGS OF ADAM
Oday Rasheed
RED PATH
Lotfi Achour
SNOW WHITE
Taghrid Abouelhassan
BIN U BIN, BORDER ELSEWHERE
Mohamed Lakhdar Tati
SAIFY
Wael Abumansour
AÏCHA
Mehdi M. Barsaoui
SEEKING HAVEN FOR MR RAMBO
Khaled Mansour
SIMA’S SONG
Roya Sadat
6 IN THE MORNING
Mehran Modiri
TO KILL A MONGOLIAN HORSE
Xiaoxuan Jiang
SABA
Maksud Hossain
Red Sea: Families & Children:
NIGHT OF THE ZOOPOCALYPSE
Ricardo Curtis, Rodrigo Perez-Castro
PANDA BEAR IN AFRICA
Richard Claus, Karsten Kiilerich
SUKKAR: SABAABAA W HOUBOUB AL KHARZIZ
Tamer Mahdy
Arab Spectacular Special Screenings (Announced Nov 5)
ABDO & SANEYA
Omar Bakry
FRONT ROW
Merzak Allouache
HOBAL
Abdulaziz Alshlahei
LAIL NAHAR
MY DRIVER AND I
Ahd Kamel
Red Sea: New Vision (announced Oct 30)
ALROSHAN
Mohammed Ous
KEMOKAZI
Abdulrahman Batawie
OTHMAN IN THE VATICAN
Yasir Bin Ghanem
WHEN THE LIGHT SHINES
Ryan Al Bishri
YALLA PARKOUR
Areeb Zuaiter
Red Sea: Series (announced Oct 30)
GHOST TRAIN
Se-Woong Tak
LOST WORLDS WITH BETTANY HUGHES: THE NABATAEANS
Jim Greayer
TALES ON BANKS OF THE BOSPHORUS
Zeina Sfeir
ZORRO
Jean Baptiste Saurel
Red Sea: Shorts Competition – Arab Selection:
FRAGMENTS OF LIFE
Anis Ben Dali
SAINT ROSE
Zayn Alexandre
THE SIGNAL
Nasser Alqattan
SHAMS
Adam Rayan
CHIKHA
Ayoub Layoussifi and Zahoua Raji
AFRICAN FAMILY DINNER
Ibrahim Mursal
IN THREE LAYERS OF DARKNESS
Houcem Slouli
CHILDREN OF BARZAGH
Ahmed Khattab
MERA, MERA, MERA
Khaled Zidan
MALIKA
Maram Taibah
LAND OF GOD
Imad Benomar
NEMSHI?
Assaf Al Rousan
FIZR
Rani Nasr
ZAHRA
Hadi Shatat
ONE LAST TIME
Karim Rahbani
Red Sea: Shorts Competition – International Selection (Announced Oct 18)
ACROSS THE WATER
Viv Li
ALAZAR
Beza Hailu Lemma
HATCH
Alireza Kazemipour and Panta Mosleh
LAI LEI
Binglin Cui
LUNGE
Negar Hassanzadeh
NAILS
Triparna Banerjee
NEVER HAVE I EVER
Joyce A. Nashawati
PIE DAN LO
Kim Yip Tong
RADIKALS
Arvin Belarmino
SANKI YOXSAN
Azer Guliev
UREFU WE KAMBA
Mageto Ndege
WASHHH
Mickey Lai
New Saudi, New Cinema Selection:
A MOSQUITO
Raneem Almohandes and Dana Almohandes
THE POST
Zakaria Albashir
THE DREAMER DREAMS
Abdulmohsen Albinali
UNDERGROUND
Abdulrahman Sandokji
PAVLOV’S BELLS
Khalid Fahad
KHAMSEN
Abdullah Alrowis
TWO SISTERS
Waleed Alqahtani
TIED
Yam Fida
WHERE’S THE IMAM?
Abrar Qari
WHEN THE SHELVES HYMN
Hanaa Saleh Alfassi
ASEER MEMORY
Saad Tahaitah
DIAA SHAMSI
Lama Jarkas
SUGAR
Khalid Bin Waleed
THE EXTRAORDINARY MISADVENTURES OF THE AMAZING BOY SUPER-BLURRY
Hassan El Hejaili
SAEED’S DAY
Mohammed Zawari
GUM
Belal Albader
THE EDGE (ORA)
Ahmed Alqithmi
THE CERTAINTY
Ahmad Kurdi
DOES IT HURT TOO BAD TO LOOK AT ME?
Rana Matar
Winners of the fourth edition of the 48 hours challenge:
ALL IN ONE NIGHT (AION)
Thoraya Akram
AFEN
Nawaf Alkinani and Othman Al Khowiter
