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Saudi Arabia to hold first-ever official film festival
RIYADH: Saudi Arabia, despite not having any cinemas, will hold its first-ever government-approved film festival on May 20, a local newspaper announced Tuesday.
The five-day festival will screen Arabic films from the region and is being organized by the state-sponsored literary club in the eastern city of Dammam and the Saudi Society of Arts and Culture.
Saudi Arabia banned the screening of movies in the early 1980s and the country's conservative clergy views them as a waste of time and a sign of impiety.
The competition is meant to boost the local film industry, which is practically nonexistent, and will award a prize for best short narrative and documentary as well as select the best screenplay and raise funds for it to be turned into a film.
Recent Saudi initiatives are limited to a 2006 social comedy called ``Keif Al-Hal'' produced by Saudi's first female director Haifa al-Mansur and filmed in Dubai and a 2006 documentary titled ``Cinema 500 km'' about a young Saudi movie fan who crosses borders just to see a film in a cinema for the first time.
Last October, two Saudi hotels in Riyadh and Jeddah screened a number of American animated and family movies in celebration of the three-day holiday marking the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
The event was harshly criticized in online forums by hardline Saudi clerics who blamed the country's Ministry of Culture and Information for failing to stop it from happening.
In May's festival, men and women will be seated in different halls during the screenings, according to organizers. Under Saudi law, men and women are not allowed to mingle in public unless they are relatives.
Saudi Arabia to hold first-ever official film festival
RIYADH: Saudi Arabia, despite not having any cinemas, will hold its first-ever government-approved film festival on May 20, a local newspaper announced Tuesday.
The five-day festival will screen Arabic films from the region and is being organized by the state-sponsored literary club in the eastern city of Dammam and the Saudi Society of Arts and Culture.
Saudi Arabia banned the screening of movies in the early 1980s and the country's conservative clergy views them as a waste of time and a sign of impiety.
The competition is meant to boost the local film industry, which is practically nonexistent, and will award a prize for best short narrative and documentary as well as select the best screenplay and raise funds for it to be turned into a film.
Recent Saudi initiatives are limited to a 2006 social comedy called ``Keif Al-Hal'' produced by Saudi's first female director Haifa al-Mansur and filmed in Dubai and a 2006 documentary titled ``Cinema 500 km'' about a young Saudi movie fan who crosses borders just to see a film in a cinema for the first time.
Last October, two Saudi hotels in Riyadh and Jeddah screened a number of American animated and family movies in celebration of the three-day holiday marking the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
The event was harshly criticized in online forums by hardline Saudi clerics who blamed the country's Ministry of Culture and Information for failing to stop it from happening.
In May's festival, men and women will be seated in different halls during the screenings, according to organizers. Under Saudi law, men and women are not allowed to mingle in public unless they are relatives.
Saudi Arabia to hold first-ever official film festival