Saudi Arabia is inching toward opening itself up to the film biz with the creation of the conservative kingdom's first official film fest, despite the fact that cinemas have been banned there for three decades.
Five-day fest, as-yet-untitled, is being organized by the government-sponsored Dammam Literary Club along with the Saudi Society of Arts and Culture.
Event will unspool May 20 and include screenings of shorts and docs from around the Gulf. A prize dubbed the Palm will be awarded to best short and doc.
The Dammam Literary Club has been hosting select, private screenings to segregated audiences of men and women in recent months in a sign that the ban's restrictions are being gently eased.
The new fest comes on the back of a number of baby steps introduced in Saudi Arabia to pave the way for the eventual lifting of the cinema ban, initially introduced towards the tail-end of the 1970s following pressure from religious authorities.
In October 2005, the first public screenings of any kind in over 20 years took place when a selection of cartoons were shown in a hotel in Riyadh to a specially invited audience of women and children to celebrate the end of the holy Muslim month of Ramadan.
In July 2006, the privately financed Jeddah Visual Festival -- which avoided using the term "film" in any of its publicity materials -- was held, again in front of a specially invited audience.
Jeddah organizers held a sophomore edition last year, with rumors rife that the Saudi government was finally planning to lift the ban. While sources in the kingdom indicate that real-estate developers have already been contacted over the possible green-light for cinemas to be built -- new malls in Saudi Arabia tend to have a space left free for their eventual construction -- no official decision to lift the ban has been announced.
With an estimated population of 27.5 million, oil-rich Saudi Arabia could potentially become the biggest single market for Arab distribs, although bigscreen fare will likely be heavily censored and restricted to family-friendly pix in the initial stages of any ban being lifted. Unable to build a film biz in their own country, Saudi media mavens have over the past 15 years instead helped fund the boom in the Arab satellite TV biz.
The region's first private satcaster MBC was launched in 1991 by Sheik Waleed Al-Ibrahim.
Since then, the likes of Al-Ibrahim and fellow Saudis Prince Waleed Bin Talal and Sheik Salah Kamel, who own Rotana and paybox ART respectively, have increasingly become the biggest funders of Egypt's film biz, traditionally the powerhouse of Arab film production.
"There are new laws that will be opening up the media environment in Saudi Arabia," said Al-Ibrahim. "The question of cinemas is being talked about openly in the paper. It's just a matter of getting the laws and regulations in place."
Contact the Variety newsroom at
news@variety.com