Saudi Gazette

Jeddah — A workshop on cinema and the entertainment industry managed to hook Saudi youth of both genders who are interested in becoming future actors, filmmakers and producers.

The workshop, held at Al-Harthi Exhibition Center, discussed challenges and opportunities in the entertainment sector.

Qaswara Al-Khateeb, CEO of Uturn, said they are offering production related majors in some universities.

But he called on the Technical and Vocational Training Corporation (TVTC) to start offering courses that can meet the demand of the entertainment industry.

To him the major challenge is the absence of financing.

Al-Khateeb, however, said that there is a great potential in the entertainment sector since he has social media experience of this industry.

Ayman Jamal, director of the movie ‘Bilal’, said the problem is not in financing but in the content.

“If the content is promising, it will definitely gain the trust of financers,” he said.

Ayman agreed with Al-Khateeb that there is a need for training institutes to provide specialized courses to serve the entertainment industry.

He said there are specified licenses for the crews. Yet they do not know the process to get the licenses. It is anticipated that the Ministry of Culture and Information will soon start issuing licenses online.