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Prominent Egyptian producer Mohamed Hefzy is branching out into Saudi Arabia by setting up an outpost of his prolific Film Clinic shingle – which has six titles at Saudi’s Red Sea Film Festival – in the Saudi capital of Riyadh.

The milestone move comes after Hefzy has been busy forging rapports with Saudi’s film community on a number of projects including Egyptian director Abu Bakr Shawky’s high-end Saudi-set adventure movie “Hajjan” – which had its regional premiere at Red Sea last year after launching from Toronto. “Hajjan” was produced by Film Clinic in tandem with the King Abdulaziz Center for World Culture, known as Ithra.

“This is something that’s been in the cards for a couple of years,” Hefzy told Variety. He added that though Film Clinic’s Saudi base will be in Riyadh, the idea is to be active throughout the entire kingdom. “We’re talking about Riyadh.

Egyptian director Abu Bakr Shawky, whose first feature “Yomeddine” had the rare distinction of making the competition cut for Cannes, has completed his followup, the Saudi-set travel movie “Hajjan” which is expected to soon surface on the festival circuit.

Somewhat similarly to “Yomeddine,” which made a splash in 2018, the hotly anticipated “Hajjan” involves a journey across the desert, this time embarked upon by a boy and his camel. The big-budget film, which was shot mostly in the sprawling area situated along Saudi’s Red Sea coast in Tabuk – in the northwest of the kingdom – is about a young boy named Matar who, after the death of his brother on the camel race track, tries to avenge his death. To do so he becomes a camel jockey, only to find himself entangled in a battle for his own freedom.

“At its heart, ‘Hajjan” is an adventure [film] that captures the deep connection...

Moviegoers not far removed from the isolating strains of lockdown may find The Loneliest Whale: The Search for 52 strikes a chord. Distributor Bleecker Street and director Joshua Zeman hope so as the doc, a shift from the helmer’s true crime roots, opens in 75 theaters.

Digital release is set for July 16.

The film is a cinematic quest for the 52 Hertz Whale, which scientists believe has spent its entire life in solitude calling out at a frequency that is different from any other of its species. The whale, discovered in 1989, became a global sensation over the past three decades — including songs about it by British indie rock band Amber Run and K-pop’s BTS.

Zeman, who said he had childhood ambitions to be a marine biologist and loved Jacques Cousteau, was floored by the story and spent ten years trying to make the...

Scales is the latest in a movement of feminist cinema coming from Saudi Arabia, in the wake of great work done by Haifaa Al-Mansour (whose excellent The Perfect Candidate was released earlier this year). In her first feature, writer-director Shahad Ameen proves herself a force behind the camera with stunning black-and-white photography and poetic imagery guiding us through the tale of a young girl’s struggle for liberation—yet at a lean 75 minutes, there’s not quite enough meat on the bones to leave a lasting impression.

Basima Hajjar plays the strong and silent heroine, Hayat, a young girl who, at least to begin with, passively accepts the patriarchal society in which she’s grown up. In the alternate reality Ameen has created, the waters around the small fishing village Hayat lives in are filled with sea maidens. Every family must sacrifice one of their daughters to placate them, ensuring...

The position of Saudi women as second-class citizens receives a potent metaphoric visualization in Saudi helmer-writer Shahad Ameen’s parable-like debut drama, “Scales.” Revealing more through imagery than dialogue, the tale unfolds on a barren island where tradition dictates that each family sacrifice a daughter to the sea maidens to ensure the local fishermen a good catch. , with the taut first third particularly strong. But the narrative’s momentum and clarity dissipate in the middle and final sections even as the visuals continue to impress. Still, the boldly inventive “Scales” marks Ameen as a talent to watch.

Variance Films is releasing “Scales” in New York and Los Angeles on July 9. A wider rollout will follow. The 2019 production had a prize-winning festival run and was chosen as the Saudi entry for the best international feature Oscar.

In the harsh, dystopian world that Ameen creates, femininity is repressed and masculinity is all powerful.

One of Saudi Arabian director Shahad Ameen’s first films was “Eye & Mermaid,” a short about a girl who learns that her father’s job is to hunt and slaughter mermaids. It was a story about the fractured relationship between a father and daughter, but for her new film “Scales,” Ameen felt there was a missed opportunity in exploring more about the girl.

“Scales” is Saudi Arabia’s submission to the Best International Feature race at the Oscars. The film is shot in a timeless black and white with an eye toward mythology about a girl named Hayat, who lives in a poor fishing village where families sacrifice one daughter to mermaids in the sea, leading to the fishermen to retaliate by hunting them. Hayat however was spared from this fate and lives as an outcast, and Ameen wanted to explore how this custom could affect someone’s self-esteem.

“It...

Shortlists to be announced on February 9.

The Academy on Thursday (January 28) published a list of 93 films eligible for international feature film Oscar category.

Algeria’s Heliopolis, about the brutal suppression by French colonial authorities of an uprising in 1945, is omitted from the list. Screen understands the national selection committee withdrew the submission.

There were also a record number of documentary submissions – 238 compared to the previous high of 170 – in light of amended eligibility rules this season due to the pandemic, and a reduced field of 27 animation contenders.

The shortlists will be announced on February 9. The 93rd annual Academy Awards are scheduled...

Although this year’s Middle Eastern/North African Oscar submissions have yet to generate a strong buzz, there are titles among the 10 films that could be contenders for the international feature short list.

Chief among them is “Sun Children” from veteran Iranian helmer Majid Majidi, whose 1997 “Children of Heaven” landed a foreign-language film nomination. This gripping drama about exploited urban street kids is cast with charismatic, non-pro performers and earned an acting award at the Venice fest for its resilient young protagonist. Strand Films will release.

A possible dark horse is “Broken Keys,” the feature debut of Lebanese multi-hyphenate Jimmy Keyrouz. It marks an expansion of his 2016 Student Academy Award-winner “Nocturne in Black” about a musician in a Syrian town controlled by Isis. Sporting the Cannes Label, this tense drama, with a score by Keyrouz’s famous compatriot Gabriel Yared, shares the combination of real-life crisis and sweeping emotion that characterizes some past nominees.

Every year since its creation in 1956, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) invites the film industries of various countries to submit their best film for the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film. The award is presented annually by the Academy to a feature-length motion picture produced outside the United States that contains primarily non-English dialogue and that was released theatrically in their respective countries between 1 October 2019 and 31 December 2020.

Here are the Asian Submissions for Best International Feature Film. There are some excellent movies in this bunch and we have seen and reviewed already some of them.

Armenia

“Songs of Solomon” by Arman Nshanian

Bangladesh

“Sincerely Yours, Dhaka” by eleven different directors

Bhutan

“Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom“ by Pawo Choyning Dorji

Cambodia

“Fathers” by Huy Yaleng

China

“Leap” by Peter Chan

Georgia

“Beginnin” by Dea Kulumbegashvili

Hong Kong

“Better Days” by Derek Tsang

India

“Jallikattu...

Saudi director Shahad Ameen‘s feminist fable “Scales” has been selected as Saudi Arabia’s official candidate for the Oscar in the international feature film category.

“Scales” draws on Arabic folklore about a young woman named Hayat – played by newcomer Basima Hajjar – who rebels against the tradition in her fishing village of sacrificing female children to monstrous mermaids lurking in the sea. The groundbreaking film launched from the 2019 Venice Film Festival’s Critics’ Week, where it won the Verona Film Club award for innovative filmmaking, and has since been shown at a slew of other festivals, including London, Carthage, Cairo, Singapore, where it won best picture, and at SXSW 2020.

In November 2020, “Scales” was released theatrically in Saudi Arabia. Variance Films will release the film in the U.S. next year.

“I have only ever wanted ‘Scales’ to be seen, enjoyed and to act as a catalyst for wider conversations about gender roles,...

The film is directed by Saudi Arabian filmmaker Shahad Ameen.

Saudi Arabian filmmaker Shahad Ameen’s Scales, about a young girl who defies chauvinistic traditions to prove her worth, took the best film prize at the Silver Screen Awards of the 30th Singapore International Film Festival.

It was a unanimous decision by the jury who found it “a very original and strong film from a first-time filmmaker who speaks about patriarchy with the simplicity of a fable”.

Indian filmmaker Anurag Kashyap served as jury head, with Malaysia’s Amir Muhammad, Hong Kong’s Pang Ho Cheung and Indonesia’s Nia...

“Scales” (aka “Sayidat Al Bahr”), directed by Saudi Arabian first-time filmmaker, Shahad Ameen, was named as the best film in the Asian feature competition at the 30th edition of the Singapore International Film Festival.

The tale of a young girl who defies her village’s harsh and chauvinistic traditions to prove her worth, collected the festival’s Silver Screen Award on Saturday at a ceremony held in the National Museum of Singapore.

The blue carpet event welcomed local figures Boo Junfeng, Royston Tan, and Tan Pin Pin, as well as film industry officials Joachim Ng, and Howie Lau. Chinese acting star Yao Chen and Japanese director Miike Takashi were also present to pick up special awards. Yao spiced up proceedings, with a throw-away comment: “recently I have been able to play several characters who found the strength to go after the love and sex that they wanted.”

Anthony Chen, whose...

The Cairo Film Festival’s Industry Days wrapped Tuesday on a high note, with several Arabic film projects emerging as standouts of its co-production platform.

The informal market component of the rebooted Cairo fest entailed five days of networking, deal-making, and mentoring, and had a greater focus on TV. Attending were such high-level execs as Agc Studios topper Stuart Ford, AMC Networks’ VP of productions Kristin Jones, and Netflix director of international originals Ahmed Sharkawi. There was also a clutch of CAA agents, plenty of European buyers, and producers and financiers from India and China.

They came to mingle with the Middle East industry at a time when the region’s market is increasingly perceived as having potential that can be unlocked despite turbulence in territories such as Lebanon, an Arabic film industry hotbed, where banks have currently blocked money transfers outside the country until unrest subsides.

“We are just...

Above: JokerWas it really that big a surprise—for some even a sensation—that the main awards of the 76ª Mostra internazionale d'arte cinematografica di Venezia went to Todd Phillips' Joker (Golden Lion) and Roman Polański's An Officer and a Spy (Grand Jury Prize)? For weren't these the films most talked about before—and among the most widely discussed cum (mainly) celebrated during the festival proper? This was arguably one of the better jury decisions in years, a decision decidedly in favor of cinema as an art for and of the masses with the potential of making serious amounts of people ponder, maybe look differently at what they thought and believed (in) so far—though film did not have all the answers.Besides: This pair perfectly sums up the main themes and concerns addressed in the competition as well as some of the outstanding films to be found in the...

Just like her heroine, writer / director Shahad Ameen breaks out of the male-dominated Saudi film industry and shapes her own path and she certainly does it in style. Her debut feature “Scales” (Sayidat Al-Bahr) follows the 2013 short movie “Eye & Mermaid” that was presented at the film festivals in Dubai, Toronto, and Stockholm and it’s the base concept that has been expanded in “Scales”. The film had its World premiere in Critics’ Week at the Venice International Film Festival.

“Scales” is screening at the BFI London Film Festival 2019

Once upon a time … in a fictional island, in a fictional era, a small fishing village believes that giving the first-born daughters to the sea to feed some monstrous mermaid-like creatures that inhabit the ocean, will keep the beasts quiet and away from threatening the village.

The film opens at night with this cruel ritual; men on a torchlit beach walk in...

The 5050×2020 gender equality charter was launched at the Cannes Film Festival in 2018.

The Cairo International Film Festival (Ciff) has become the first Arab film festival, and second African festival, to sign the 5050×2020 gender equality charter, launched at the Cannes Film Festival in 2018.

The signing of the pledge will take place during a gala screening of fantasy drama Scales, the debut feature of Saudi Arabian filmmaker Shahad Ameen which world premiered to acclaim in Venice Critic’s Week in September.

Produced by Imagenation Abu Dhabi and sold internationally by Agc International, the film will also participate in Ciff’s Horizons of...

“All This Victory,” a tense war drama directed by Lebanon’s Ahmad Ghossein and set in 2006 in his country during the conflict between Hezbollah and Israel, is the big winner at the Venice Critics’ Week section dedicated to first works.

The film is about a young man named Marwan who during a ceasefire goes in search of his father who refused to leave his Southern village, while his wife Rana is preparing papers for their immigration to Canada. Marwan however finds no traces of his father, the ceasefire is quickly broken and the situation spiral out of control after he is forced to shelter in the home of Najib, his father’s friend, and some of Najib’s friends. As bombs hail down, tensions within the house rise; and then a group of Israeli soldiers enter the building.

“Victory,” which is produced by Georges Schoucair and Myriam Sassine of Beirut-based...

Young Saudi Arabian writer-director Shahad Ameen is making a splash in Venice with her debut feature “Scales,” a feminist fable that draws on Arabic folklore about a young woman named Hayat who rebels against the tradition in her fishing village of sacrificing female children to monstrous mermaids lurking in the sea. She spoke to Variety about the long journey of this visually impressive and narratively bold depiction of patriarchal power that packs a subtle but incisive punch.

I’ve been tracking this film for a long time. Can you talk to me about its journey?

I started writing the script for “Scales” when I was in post on my short “Eye & Mermaid,” on which the film’s concept is based on, even though it’s a completely different story. That was in around 2014. The script took a very long time before we got to where we were able to shoot...