Added 519 project pages to the IMDb portal database, where Saudi Arabia is shown in the “country of manufacture” column. This list includes not only movies, but also series, TV shows, and music videos. And things like, for example, recording a football match between the national teams of the United Arab Emirates and Uruguay as part of the 1997 Confederations Cup held in a stadium in Riyadh. There are 112 Saudi films in the Russian Kinopoisk database.
Such small production volumes are hardly surprising: cinemas were banned in Saudi Arabia for 35 years, from 1983 to 2018.
Although as recently stated document According to the Saudi Ministry of Culture Report on the State of Culture in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia: Facts and Figures, the absence of full-fledged cinemas did not mean the complete absence of cinema culture in the country. forbidden. The first home theaters appeared in Saudi Arabia in the 1930s in residential complexes built in Dhahran for foreign employees of California-Arabian Standard Oil. The venture originated as a joint venture between an American oil company and the Saudi government. Finally, 50 years later, he gained full control over CASO and made it national – the same Saudi Aramco.
From the beginning of the 50s, handicraft cinemas began to appear in different cities. For example, they were located in the courtyards of houses and sports clubs (in Arabic “Wikipedia”) mentions even embassy and consulate buildings). Of course, there was no talk of the industry: these were improvised, non-systemic attempts that hardly fit into Arab cultural norms, but were considered unacceptable from the point of view of Islamic doctrine. However, only men could visit such places. They mainly exhibited Egyptian, Indian and Turkish paintings.
The title of “first Saudi film” was awarded to several films at once. One of them is The Fly, a 1952 short film dedicated to the flower fly and the diseases it carries. The documentary, which aims to improve medical literacy, is produced by California-Arabian Standard Oil and directed by American Richard Layford, who came to the kingdom with a Hollywood film crew. Shortly before that, Michelangelo won an Oscar for a documentary about “Titan” and worked on the “Disney” hits “Dumbo”, “Pinocchio” and “Fantasy” early in his career. After spending nearly four years in Saudi Arabia, the producer shot another documentary, this time called The Island of Allah, about the kingdom’s oil business. Despite the predominantly American names in the credits, historians and critics alike consider The Fly to be a Saudi movie, as the main character in the movie was Saudi doctor Hassan al-Ghanim.
Another “first Saudi film” is Remorse, which was released shortly after the launch of state television in 1965. At this time, a full-fledged film industry is beginning to form in the kingdom, actors are selected from university theaters. Television is becoming the main platform where “movie nights” are held on the air.
The Ministry of Culture report mentions another film that bears the title of “debut”: “Murder in the City”, a 1976 short film dedicated to the civil war in Lebanon (1975-1990) and the devastation of Beirut. According to the document, it was the first film to be officially shot in Saudi Arabia and screened at international festivals (citing the show in Cairo, where the tape won the Silver Nefertiti award). Its director and producer, Abdullah al-Muhaisen, went to London to study philosophy and cinematography after graduating from school, and returned to his hometown in 1975 with a director’s degree. Until the early ’90s, most of the films in the country were made by his own production company, and al-Muhaisen himself was considered the kingdom’s “only director”.
Three years after the publication of “City Murder” on November 20, 1979, terrorists captured more than six thousand hostages in Mecca’s largest mosque. It was possible to carry out the final attack and free the people only two weeks later – on December 4. According to official figures, 255 pilgrims, soldiers and terrorists were killed and 560 injured as a result of the attack. After this incident, which shook the authority of the ruling family, Islamist activity began to increase in the country. Religious conservatives have accused cinemas of having a corrupting influence on society, and films in both English and Arabic have been called “contrary to the teachings of Islam”. In 1983 they succeeded in having the government ban the cinemas altogether.
At the same time, television in the country was preserved – and its heyday came in the 80s: the first private television productions were launched, a large number of serials began to appear. It was also during this time that videotapes appeared in Saudi Arabia, and in the absence of cinemas, the country has become one of the largest consumers of physical cinema.
There were several other important events in the 1990s. First, the satirical sketch show “Tash ma Tash” (approximate translation – “Delov-to”) began to be shown on the state channel, which lasted 18 seasons and is considered one of the most successful television products not only in Saudi Arabia itself. but also in the Arab world (for example, parts of it are kept in the US Library of Congress). The program was revolutionary in many ways in terms of self-irony and its handling of sensitive topics such as religion and legislation. New episodes of “Tash ma Tash” aired just after sunset in Ramadan.
Secondly, satellite TV channels appeared, where many foreign films and TV series were shown. At first, the authorities banned buyers from owning, but their popularity was so high (for example, video rental stores died), the government was forced to soften: satellite was allowed, provided it did not show pornography and did not criticize the country’s leadership or Islam. A few years later, the public Internet was launched. Among the first Saudi sites was the Cinemac film forum, which eventually proved to be an important industrial institution: many of its users soon migrated to the cultural sections of official newspapers and later became critics, screenwriters and directors.
Film production, which had been silent for several years, resumed in the early 2000s – however, at first these were just amateur short films shot on their knees according to slurred scenarios, according to the SA Ministry of Culture report. and with suspicious actors in the frame.
But already in 2006, three notable films were released at once. Abdullah al-Muhaisen, director of the feature-length fantasy drama Shadows of Silence, has returned. The plot revolved around a mysterious institution that the authoritarian regime offered as a hypnotherapy center but was actually trying to brainwash talented youth with its help. Another important film is Palestinian Isidore Mussalam’s big-budget comedy “How are you?” it happened. (but filmed in the UAE), dedicated to the opposition of a young Arab woman and her conservative family. It was the first Saudi film to be released commercially. Discussions on the appropriateness of the current cinema ban have resumed. These conversations were reinforced with Abdullah al-Eyaf’s short documentary “Cinema 500 km”, which depicts a young Saudi cinephile crossing the border to watch a movie on the big screen for the first time in her life.
At zero absurd restrictions began to actively jump. In 2005, an IMAX theater was opened in the country, where only educational films were shown. In the hotel building of the capital for some time there was another hall for 1400 people. It was open to women and children only and included foreign cartoons dubbed in Arabic. Also, initiative representatives of the creative intelligentsia began to launch film festivals. Venues were still not the most obvious places like literature clubs, and the word “cinema” was not used in event names. In some cases, it was possible to extend it for several years, but in the end all attempts were stopped.
In 2010, everything started to change. Wajda, a 2012 film about a girl who dreams of saving money for a bicycle, was the country’s first feature film directed by a woman (director and screenwriter Haifa al-Mansour) and also the first film Saudi Arabia sought to be nominated for an Oscar. . . . Wajda premiered at the Venice Film Festival.
In 2015, they managed to become the owners of the Saudi Film Festival, which has been held annually since then. In addition, a large number of young filmmakers who have mastered YouTube have appeared – video hosting has become the main platform for independent cinema. In 2016, Netflix became available in the kingdom. The first Arab movie in the streaming catalog was a romantic drama
Mahmoud Sabbagh “Baraka meets Baraka” is about the love of a simple man and a girl from a wealthy family. The painting was first shown at an exhibition in Berlin. They also tried to send him to the Oscars, but as with Wajda, the nomination never came.
In the spring of 2018, the ban on cinema in the kingdom was lifted. The first movie that was officially shown in Saudi Arabia was the Black Panther comic. He escaped with some blood: only a 40-second kiss scene was cut from the tape. A few weeks after Panther, Avengers: Infinity War came out in the kingdom.
According to the SA Ministry of Culture, 101 films were shot in the country in 2019, 20 of which were feature films. Authorities expect more than 300 cinemas to open in the kingdom by 2030. In 2020, Saudi Arabia overtook the UAE as the most profitable film market in the Middle East and the only one that continues to expand despite the coronavirus pandemic.
Text about the history of Iranian cinema – here.