Third Annual Jedda Film Festival Opens with Packed Auditorium

By The Media Line/Adam Gonn

Although it was an opening night without stars, a red carpet or the glamour associated with movies in the West this week the third annual Jedda film festival kicked of in the Saudi city, the Saudi newspaper Arabnews reported.

The festival will screen films from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain and Qatar, as well as films from Japan, the U.S. and Europe, the general manager of the festival Mamtud Salim told The Media Line.

Jedda is sometimes referred to by locals as the Paris of Saudi Arabia due to its more liberal-minded population. According to the paper the auditorium was filled to the brim, with women sitting at the back and men at the front. This is most uncommon in a country that is home to Wahhabism, one of the strictest forms of Islam.

This was the first time that the festival was called a film festival; in previous years the event was known as the "Jedda Visual Shows Festival." Despite the fact that there are no public cinemas in Saudi Arabia 38 of the 70 films taking part in the competition of the festival will be Saudi.

The festival also includes two workshops, one about film-making, held by Robert Tutak from the Manhattan Film Academy in New York, and the second on documentary films, held by Fadi Islam from Al-Arabia, said Salim.

A seminar on the future of Saudi film-making will also be held during the festival.

judythpiazza@newsblaze.com

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