Anna Kendrick & Ewan McGregor Pictures Head To Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea Film Fest As New Round Of Selected Films Announced

Melanie Goodfellow
·4 min read
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Anna Kendrick’s directorial debut Woman Of The Hour and family drama Mother Couch, starring Ewan McGregor and Ellen Burstyn, are headed to the third edition of Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea International Film Festival, running from November 30 to December 9 in the port city of Jeddah.

The titles will play in the Festival Favorites sidebar which was announced on Thursday alongside the event’s Red Sea: Treasures strand.

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Kendrick directs and stars in Netflix-acquired drama Woman Of The Hour as a woman whose path crosses notorious serial killer Rodney Alcala, whilst in Niclas Larsson’s first film Mother Couch, McGregor plays a man whose mother squats the family furniture store.

Further films in the line-up – showcasing 21 buzzy festival titles from the last 12 months – include the David Oyelowo produced documentary Allihopa: The Dalkurd Story; Women’s World Cup doc Copa 71, executive produced by Serena and Venus Williams, Jennifer Esposito’s Fresh Kills, Laetitia Colombani’s The Braid and Asmae El Moudi’s documentary’s Mother of All Lies, which is Morocco’s Oscar entry this year. (scroll down for full list of films)

“These are powerful stories that stay with you long after the films have ended, and expertly make use of the medium of cinema to surprise, start conversations, and engage viewers,” said Kaleem Aftab, Director of International Programming for the Red Sea International Film Festival.

The festival also unveiled its Red Sea: Treasures strand featuring seven classic cinema titles, many of which are screening for the first time in Saudi Arabia on newly restored prints.

They include Egyptian classics Victory Of Youth, starring Farid Al Atrash and Asmahan, and My Wife’s Goblin, with Shadia and Salah Zulfiqar. They have been restored and are showing at the festival thanks to a partnership withEgyptian Media Production City.

The other titles comprise a new 4K version of Fatih Akin’s music documentary about the changing music scene in Turkey, Crossing The Bridge: The Sound Of Istanbul; Jacques Demy’s musical comedy Les Demoiselles De Rochefort; Fernando Meirelles and Kátia Lund’s City of God, and Lost In La Mancha (2002) and He Dreams Of Giants (2019) by directors Keith Fulton and Louis Pepe, which chronicle Terry Gilliam’s decades-long journey to making The Man Who Killed Don Quixote.

“Once again, we have unearthed some very special titles to present which celebrate many eras and genres in cinema, and we look forward to both welcoming existing fans of the titles and creating new ones,” said Antoine Khalife, Director of Arab Programmes and Film Classics.

The newly-announced movies join another 30 features selected for the Red Sea’s Special Screenings, Main Competition, aimed at Arab, African and Asian cinema, and Arab Spectacular sidebars, which were announced on Monday.

That announcement dispelled questions over whether the event would be cancelled due to the Israel-Hamas conflict, sparked by the latter’s terror attacks on Southern Israel on October 7, in which 1,400 people were killed and more than 240 hostages were taken.

A number of film festivals in the Middle East and North Africa have abandoned their 2023 fall editions in recent weeks out of solidarity for the population of Gaza, where more than 10,300 people have been killed by Israel’s retaliatory military campaign aimed at eradicating Hamas and bringing home the hostages.

For now, the RSIFF management team, led by Mohammed Al-Turki, CEO of the Red Sea Film Foundation and festival MD Shivani Pandya Malhotra, has yet to make any official statement about their decision to maintain the edition, letting the selection speak for itself instead.

All the films in the Festival Favorites Sidebar  

  • ALLIHOPA: THE DALKURD STORY  
    Dir. Kordo Doski  
    Iraq, Sweden, United States of America (USA), and Canada

  • ANIMALIA 
    Dir. Sofia Alaoui 
    Morroco

  • COPA 71 
    Dir. Rachel Ramsay, James Erskine 
    United Kingdom

  • DANCE FIRST
    Dir. James Marsh 
    United Kingdom, Hungary, and Belgium

  • FRESH KILLS 
    Dir. Jennifer Esposito 
    United States of America (USA)

  • HESITATION WOUND 
    Dir. Selman Nacar 
    Turkey, France, Romania, and Spain

  • HOPELESS 
    Dir. Kim Chang-hoon 
    South Korea

  • HOUNDS 
    Dir. Kamal Lazraq 
    Morroco

  • MARS EXPRESS
    Dir. Jérémie Périn  
    France

  • MOTHER COUCH 
    Dir. Niclas Larsson 
    United States of America (USA)

  • MOTHER OF ALL LIES 
    Dir. Asmae El Moudir 
    Morocco

  • SNOW IN MIDSUMMER 
    Dir. Keat Aun Chong 
    Malaysia, Taiwan, R.O.C and Singapore

  • THE BRAID 
    Dir. Laetitia Colombani
    France

  • THE DELINQUENTS 
    Dir. Rodrigo Moreno 
    Argentina, Brazil, Luxembourg, and Chile

  • THIIIRD 
    Dir. Karim Kassem 
    Lebanon

  • THE LAST SNOW 
    Dir. Amir Hossein Asgari 
    Iran

  • THE UNIVERSAL THEORY
    Dir. Timm Kröger  
    Germany, Austria, and Switzerland

  • WOMAN OF THE HOUR 
    Dir. Anna Kendrick  
    United States of America (USA)

  • 24 HOURS WITH GASPAR 
    Dir. Yosep Anggi Noen 
    Indonesia

  • LOST LADIES (LAAPATAA LADIES)
    Dir Kiran Rao
    India

  • RANSOMED
    Dir Seong Hun Kim
    South Korea

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