December 11 is the last day of the Red Sea Souk
Today is the last day of the Red Sea Souk, bringing a week packed with information, discussion and successful pitching sessions to a close with the Industry Awards – a night specially for Souk badge holders.
For the rest of us, it’s a normal Saturday – and for some of you, that’s a big day out with the kids. The Red Sea Film Festival has plenty to offer, with the films in our Next Generation section geared to inspire future filmmaking stars!
To know more about the bus schedules: check timetable here.
Today at the Souk
9.00 - 16.30 (with break from 13.00 to 14.00)
Vox Cinemas Al Balad 1
Souk badge-holders only
The final day for one-on-one meetings between project teams and industry representatives.
All badge-holders welcome
From Script to Screen: A Netflix Guide to Deal-Making
A masterclass with Izzy Abidi
10.00-12.30
Souk Talks Room
Netflix’s in-house legal counsel Izzy Abidi – Emirates Woman of the Year in 2015 - also has broad experience in creative industries, including founding the music business platform Freshly Ground Sounds in the UAE. She talks about how to make the money go round.
A Netflix Guide to Post-Production
A masterclass with Karim Boutros Ghali and Frank Piazza
12.30-15.00
Souk Talks Room
Paris-based head of International Post-Production Services Karim Boutros Ghali and Netflix’s post-production manager for Turkish and Arabic language productions, Frank Piazza, share their insights.
Industry Awards Ceremony
17.00 onwards
The industry programme is awarding $700,000 in cash and support services, contributed by a range of generous industry sponsors, to the best entrants in the Project Market and Works in Progress sections. And the winners are …
Market Screenings
Souk badge-holders only
Ghodwa
10.00-11.30
Vox Cinema Souk
Tunisian director Dhafer L’abidine mingles a people’s aspirations for social justice with the story of a rekindled relationship between a 15-year-old boy and his ailing father.
Daughters of Adbulrahmane
12.15 -14.07
Vox Cinema Souk
Four middle-aged Jordanian sisters are reunited when their increasingly cantankerous father goes missing in Zaid Abuhhamdan’s warm-hearted tale.
Take Me to the Cinema
14.45- 15.45
Vox Cinema Souk
Documentary-maker Albaqer Jaafar follows former Iraqi soldier Nassif, whose obsessive search for his pre-war favourite movie - Papillon, with Steve McQueen – shields him from recognising what Baghdad has become.
And welcome back to the Festival!
Festival Talks
Red Sea: In Conversation with Hend Sabry
16.30 -17.30
Vox cinemas Al Balad 1
Tunisian-born Hend Sabry became famous throughout the Arabic-speaking world as 30-something Ola Abdel-Sabour, central character of the long-running, much beloved but also controversial Egyptian television drama series I Want to Get Married. Now executive producer as well as star of a Netflix film that takes up Ola’s story in middle age, she hopes the new work will also provide a focus for discussion of social taboos and expectations.
Festival Films
Next Generation: films for kids
10.00 -10.53
Vox Cinemas, Red Sea Mall 5
Short animations, fun and games for little ones.
12.00-—13.41
Vox Cinemas, Red Sea Mall 5
Melati,18, has been campaigning against plastics pollution in Indonesia for six years. With director Flore Vasseur she travels the world to meet other young people trying to save the world.
Belle: The Dragon and the Freckled Princess
15.00 – 17.16
Red Sea Gala Theatre
Vox Cinemas, Al Balad
Grieving Suzu discovers a virtual world where members’ avatars embody the secret strengths they didn’t know they had. Dazzling animation from Japanese master Mamoru Hosada. Screening as a gala.
Short and Sweet: Short film programmes
You have a chance to watch all the festival’s competing short films. All 3 packages of the best shorts from Asia, Africa and the Arab World are showing today.
Competition shorts 1
12.00-13.46
Vox Cinemas, Al Balad 4
Competition shorts 2
18.15 – 19.52
Vox Cinemas, Al Balad 3
Competition shorts 3
21.45 – 23.39
Vox Cinemas, Al Balad 2
Festival galas
18.30- 21.12
Red Sea Gala Theatre
Vox Cinemas, Al Balad
Ennio Morricone, the greatest of all film composers, is the subject of this engrossing documentary by his friend and collaborator – and the president of our Red Sea Competition Jury – Giuseppe Tornatore.
22.30-00.31
Red Sea Gala Theatre
Vox Cinemas, Al Balad
Mona Lisa is an escaped mental patient with telekinetic powers; Kate Hudson plays the trashy pole dancer who takes her in. Iranian stylist Ana Lily Amirpour takes us on a wacky ride.
Competition films
Europa (repeat)
14.45 – 15.17
Vox Cinemas, Al Balad 2
Kamal flees Iraq, hoping to get to Europe, but first he must get through the lawless badlands between Turkey and Bulgaria. Director Haider Rashid turns up the suspense.
Communion (repeat)
15.00 – 16.45
Vox Cinemas, Al Balad 2
Director Nejib Belkadhi also takes a lead role as the mentally unstable husband in this two-hander about a couple struggling with lock-down.
20.00 – 21.27
Vox Cinemas, Al Balad 2
Three mercenaries clash with a legendary Guinea-Bissau figure in Jean-Luc Hebulot’s thrilling mash-up of the supernatural and revolutionary politics.
Farha (repeat)
18.30 – 20.07
Vox Cinemas, Al Balad 2
Darin J. Sallam’s story of a Palestinian girl in 1948 who, just as she has persuaded her father to let her go to school, must go into hiding when her village is bombed.
Recovery (repeat)
22.15 – 23.20
Vox Cinemas, Al Balad 2
Palestinian director Rashid Masharawi’s film made during lockdown in Paris about his family’s hometown Jaffa, brought to life with old photographs and an evocative soundtrack.
Casablanca Beats (repeat)
15.00 – 16.46
Vox Cinemas, Al Balad 2
A rapper takes a job at a cultural centre where he inspired local kids to express themselves through music in Nabil Ayouch’s uplifting film.
Also screening today (for the first time!)
12.30-14.18
Vox cinemas, Al Balad 1
A Red Sea Classic – now 50 years old - by legendary Egyptian director Youssef Chahine. A famous writer is accused of killing his twin brother, but is there even more to this than meets the eye?
21.30 – 23.31
Vox cinemas, Al Balad 2
Chiara, 16, lives in a mafia-run town but never queries where the family’s money comes from - until her father disappears. Jonas Carpignano’s film shows the destructive power of secrets.
15.15 – 17.31
Vox cinemas, Al Balad 4
Restored with the support of the Red Sea Film Foundation, an Egyptian classic of 1994 about the sum of human happiness, directed by Khairy Beshara.
18.00 – 19.49
Vox cinemas, Al Balad 2
Radu Muntean’s comic account of three squabbling aid workers in remote Romania who meet their match in a crafty elderly local.
18.15 – 20.27
Vox cinemas, Red Sea Mall 6
Iranian multiple Oscar-winner Asghar Farhadi shows a small scam become a huge confidence trick, when a hapless thief is turned overnight into an internet hero.
18.45 – 20.21
Vox cinemas, Al Balad 1
Journalist and film-maker Dina Amer uses three actresses to interpret the fractured identity of Hasna Ait Boulachen, dubbed Europe’s first female bomber in 2015.
18.45 – 20.42
Vox cinemas, Red Sea Mall 4
A magician at a child’s birthday party mistakenly turns Dad into a chicken in Omar Al Zoheiry’s Cannes prize-winning fantasy.
21.30-23.29
Vox cinemas, Al Balad 3
In an isolated, shadowy house, the dutiful Albert takes care of a little girl with very strange teeth. Visionary director Lucile Hadzihalilovic takes us into the dark unknown.
21.45 – 23.54
Red Sea Mall 6
The only public screening of the festival’s joyous opening night film, with Peter Dinklage as the romantic soldier who writes love poetry that woos the woman he loves – for someone else.
22.15 – 23.50
Vox cinemas, Al Balad 4
Maan Bin Abdulrahmane’s adventure-horror follows a Saudi Arabian would-be vlogger who travels to Southern California in search of paranormal activity – and finds it.
22.00-23.34
Vox cinemas, Red Sea Mall 5
Rojan, a schoolgirl in Iraqi Kurdistan, must pass her exams or be forced into marriage; her older sister resolves to help her. By Shawkat Amin Korki.
And you can still catch …
New Saudi/New Cinema short films: 12.00, Al Balad 2.
Red Sea: Immersive
Our journey into current VR film-making continues at Hayy Jameel.
One-hour slots available at 11, 1215, 1330, 1515, 1630, 1745, 1930, 2045 and 2200.
