If there’s anyone who’s felt the dramatic change in Saudi Arabia’s film industry, it’s Haifaa al-Mansour.
When she shot her directorial debut “Wadjda” in 2011, she was forced to direct outdoor scenes “from inside a van” due to segregation. There was also no industry to speak of that could really offer her much support.
“It was just logistically very difficult for me as a filmmaker,” she said.
A little over 10 years on, al-Mansour has returned to shoot two more features in Saudi Arabia, 2019’s “The Perfect Candidate” and the upcoming crime thriller “Unidentified,” but now with the full weight of a country that is pouring investment into arts and culture.
“Now I feel like I own the streets,” she said. “It’s really an amazing feeling to go back home and be able to be on the streets and shoot, and to see art flourish in the country. It’s really an amazing moment.”
Al-Mansour was speaking in Cannes on the panel for Film Alula as part of the Variety Global Conversations Summit held at the festival. Set up in 2020 and formally launched in Cannes that year, Film Alula oversees the fast-rising filmmaking activities in the historic northwest region of Saudi Arabia, home to a UNESCO heritage site but also a growing number of studio facilities and productions.
“I think it is such a beautiful, beautiful place when it comes to landscape and they have this amazing incentive as well,” said al-Mansour. “People there want to promote the place, so you go there and there is a team that helps you find your locations, and makes sure that your crew is taken care of. It takes away a lot of the burden when you have a partner that wants you to succeed and invest in your journey.”
Celtic Films Entertainment CEO Stuart Sutherland, who also spoke on the panel, is someone who has had direct experience of this, shooting the Gerard Butler actioner “Kandahar” in Alula in 2021. At the time, it was the biggest film to have ever shot in Saudi Arabia. The shoot for “Kandahar” actually helped form the blueprint for how Alula would handle large scale productions.
“It was my idea that we should go to Alula,” he said. “But I was just like a blank canvas. Everything was possible, and we were also working out how the industry was going to be, starting on the ground.”
Much has happened in Alula since it welcomed “Kandahar,” as Film Alula’s executive director Zaid Shaker added. “In 2024, we hosted more than 85 projects, comprising of features, unscripted programs, video clips and different projects,” he said, also pointing to the recently signed partnership with Manhattan Beach Studios to operate Alula’s studios.
Outside of the sound stages of Alula, the entire filmmaking landscape of Saudi Arabia has moved forward leaps and bounds, going from a few rogue directors trying to piece together films through whatever means possible to a rapidly-rising industry welcoming more skilled workers by the day.
Al-Mansour said she hasn’t simply felt this change moving from “Wadjda” to “The Perfect Candidate,” but even between that feature and her upcoming movie “Unidentified.”
“It’s really nice to see people with more experience and more understanding about what a film is, what location scouting is and to have actual casting directors, where before it just like sitting in a dingy hotel waiting for someone who knows someone,” she explained.
For “Unidentified,” expected to be released this fall, she said she had an “amazing, sassy Saudi woman” as a casting director.
“She was just like, how many extras do you want? I’m going to bring them to you,” she said “I was really skeptical at the beginning, but she was amazing and really delivered and she is just wonderful.”
