Saudi Gazette

JEDDAH — Saudi Arabia has the highest percentage of women filmmakers compared to men. Up to 60 percent of filmmakers in Saudi are women, said Faiza Ambah, a film writer and director, who moved from journalism to filmmaking industry. She commented, “I am super proud of us”. She told Saudi Gazette that people always say women in Saudi Arabia are not advanced but that is not the case in the film industry. She said, “In this industry we were able to make something out of nothing.” She added that all women filmmakers she knows of do both writing and directing and they had to learn overseas or online.

Faiza called on those working in the entertainment industry “to take cinema seriously. To be willing to learn and become good directs.” She added that there is a need for more workshops and seminars where discussions and training are offered for local talents. She further added that time is here to start producing and getting crews from the local market. According to her, filmmaking needs both educational backgrounds combined with experience. “Field is very important,” she said.

Faiza was speaking to Saudi Gazette on the sidelines of a panel discussion organized by Saudi Art Council and American Film Showcase. Three guests were discussing cinematic storytelling including Anu Valia from the USA whose short film, Lucia, Before and After won the Jury Prize for US Fiction, Hisham Fageeh the co-producer of Barakah Meets Barakah, a drama-comedy film which represented Saudi Arabia in the foreign language film Oscar and Jassim Al-Saady, a production manager known for A Hologram for the King, Journey to Mecca and Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden.

The three panelists addressed issues including the need to have bylaws to moderate the cinema industry and they advised beginners to practice and learn from mistakes. Speaking about her experience, Anu noted that as she has seen other women succeeding in the filmmaking industry, she was encouraged to go on with her own ideas as she knows it is not impossible to reach what others have gained.

Speaking about the Saudi scene, both Hisham and Jassim agreed that the products presented have developed if one compares earlier experiences on YouTube to the current product in terms of technicalities. However, they still believe that more time is needed before the cinema gets mature experiences. Jassim believes that young filmmakers should wait until they develop their skills and get more training prior to aiming big. He added that the more mistakes they make the more they would learn. Hisham believes that the new cinema industry will produce two types of genres, one includes production be exported and others to be presented locally, but at a later stage, there would be one product that might be consumed all over the world. He preferred not to compare the new cinema experience in the Kingdom to other countries in the Arab region including Egypt and Jordan were cinema has been practiced for decades and he suggested developing the industrial bylaws though looking at the UAE experience.