Riyadh, July 20: Saudi Arabia’s only film festival has been halted before it even opened, festival sources said, as powerful Islamic conservatives battle a popular push for more entertainment.
Organisers of the Jeddah Film Festival were told late by the city authorities that they could not go ahead with Saturday’s opening, even though the event had been heralded as a highlight of the city’s summer festival, which began on Thursday.
The week-long festival was to have featured a competition between eight Gulf feature films – two from Saudi Arabia itself – and show dozens of shorts by local and regional filmmakers.
It had gone through a laborious process of receiving permission from ministries and regional and local officials before being officially announced, organisers said. Its cancellation was a clear setback for film fans and entertainment companies hoping to reverse a 30-year ban on public screenings of films.
Hardliners in the senior clergy regard film, music and other entertainment as violating Islamic teachings and have fought to block a revival of movies backed by popular demand.
People knowledgeable about the festival’s cancellation said they believed the order had come from high up in the Saudi Government.
The festival was being underwritten by the Rotana group, the regional entertainment vehicle of the Saudi tycoon Prince Alwaleed bin Talal. It was to show an Islamic film from an Islamic cable television network, and feature a film workshop sponsored by the British Council and appearances by directors of the featured films.
However, Rotana’s showings of its comedy feature Menahi in Jeddah and Riyadh in the past seven months angered conservatives. While few were willing to openly criticise a member of the royal family, Prince Alwaleed’s own brother, Prince Khalid bin Talal, appeared on a religious television channel on Friday afternoon and strongly denounced films and the film festival, insisting they be banned.
–Agencies–