Saudi Arabia banned film for 35 years. The Red Sea festival is just one sign of the industry's rise

“My Driver and I” was supposed to be made in 2016, but was scuttled amid Saudi Arabia's decades-long cinema ban. Eight years later, the landscape for film in the kingdom looks much different — and the star of “My Driver and I” now has an award.

Roula Dakheelallah was named the winner of the Chopard Emerging Saudi Talent award at the Red Sea International Film Festival on Thursday. The award — and the glitzy festival itself — is a sign of Saudi Arabia's commitment to shaping a new film industry.

“My heart is attached to cinema and art; I have always dreamed of a moment like this,” Dakheelallah, who still works a 9-5 job, told The Associated Press before the awards ceremony. “I used to work in voluntary films and help my friends in the field, but this is my first big role in a film.”

The reopening of cinemas in 2018 marked a cultural turning point for Saudi Arabia, an absolute monarchy that had instituted the ban 35 years before, under the influence of ultraconservative religious authorities. It has since invested heavily in a native film industry by building theaters and launching programs to support local filmmakers through grants and training.

The Red Sea International Film Festival was launched just a year later, part of an attempt to expand Saudi influence into films, gaming, sports and other cultural fields. Activists have decried the investments as whitewashing the kingdom’s human rights record as it tightly controls speech and remains one of the world’s top executioners. With FIFA awarding the 2034 World Cup to Saudi Arabia this week, Lina al-Hathloul, a Saudi activist with the London-based rights group ALQST, said Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman “has really managed to create this bubble where people only see entertainment and they don’t see the reality on the ground.”

These efforts are part of Vision 2030, an ambitious reform plan unveiled in 2016 to ease the economy's dependence on oil. As part of it, Saudi Arabia plans to construct 350 cinemas with over 2,500 movie screens — by this past April, across 22 cities, it already had 66 cinemas showing movies from the local film industry, as well as Hollywood and Bollywood. (The Red Sea International Film Festival attracts a host of talent from the latter industries, with Viola Davis and Priyanka Chopra Jonas also picking up awards Thursday.)

The country's General Entertainment Authority last month opened Al Hisn Studios on the outskirts of Riyadh. As one of the largest such production hubs in the Middle East, it not only includes several film studios but also a production village with workshops for carpentry, blacksmithing and fashion tailoring.

“These facilities, when they exist, will stimulate filmmakers,” said Saudi actor Mohammed Elshehri. “Today, no writer or director has an excuse to imagine and say, ‘I cannot implement my imagination.’”

The facilities are one part of the equation — the content itself is another. One of the major players in transforming Saudi filmmaking has been Telfaz11, a media company founded in 2011 that began as a YouTube channel and quickly became a trailblazer. Producing high-quality digital content such as short films, comedy sketches and series, Telfaz11 offered fresh perspectives on Saudi and regional issues.

In 2020, Telfaz11 signed a partnership with Netflix to produce original content for the streaming giant. The result has been movies that demonstrate an evolution on the storytelling level, tackling topics that were once off-limits and sensitive to the public like secret nightlife in “Mandoob” (“Night Courier”) and changing social norms in “Naga.”

“I think we tell our stories in a very simple way, and that’s what reaches the world,” Elshehri says of the changing shift. “When you tell your story in a natural way without any affectation, it will reach every person.”

But the films were not without their critics, drawing mixed reaction. Social media discoursed ranged from pleasure that Saudi film were tackling such topics to anger over how the films reflected conservative society.

As Hana Al-Omair, a Saudi writer and director, points out, there are still many stories left untold.

“We certainly have a long time ahead of us before we can tell the Saudi narrative as it should be,” she said, acknowledging that there are still barriers and rampant censorship. “The Goat Life,” a Malayalam-language movie about an Indian man forced to work without pay in Saudi Arabia, is not available on Netflix's platform in the country. Movies that explore political topics or LGBTQ+ stories are essentially out of the question.

Even “My Driver and I,” featured at the Red Sea festival alongside 11 other Saudi feature-length films, was initially too controversial. It centers on a Sudanese man in Jeddah, living away from his own daughter, who feels responsible for the girl he drives as her parents are absent. It was initially blocked from being made because of the relationship between the girl and the driver, filmmaker Ahd Kamel has said, even though it's not a romantic relationship.

Now in 2024, the film is a success story — a symbol of the Saudi film industry's evolution as well as the growing role of women like Kamel behind the camera and Dakheelallah in front of it.

“I see the change in Saudi cinema, a very beautiful change and it is moving at a wonderful speed. In my opinion, we do not need to rush,” Dakheelallah said. “We need to guide the truth of the artistic movement that is happening in Saudi Arabia.”