Johnny Depp’s ‘Modi’ & Robbie Williams Biopic ‘Better Man’ Head To Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea Film Fest With Karim Shenawy’s ‘The Tale Of Daye’s Family’ Set As Opener

Melanie Goodfellow
·6-min read

The Red Sea Film Festival has unveiled the bulk of the line-up for its fourth edition, which will showcase 120 films from 81 territories from December 5 to 14 in the port city of Jeddah.

The festival will open with Egyptian director Karim Shenawy’s The Tale Of Daye’s Family (aka Light) about an 11-year-old Nubian albino boy with a beautiful voice, who faces adversity due to his unique appearance.

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Abandoned by his father and bullied by his peers, he dreams of following in the footsteps of his idol, singer and actor Mohamed Mounir. When he gets a chance to audition for The Voice, Daye and his family embark on a perilous 1,000-mile journey from Southern Egypt to Cairo.

Michael Gracey’s semi-biographical feature Better Man, inspired by Robbie Williams and portraying the pop icon as a chimpanzee, will close the festival.

Johnny Depp’s Modi, Three Days on the Wing of Madness – which was supported by the festival’s parent body the Red Sea Film Foundation – and employed participants of its apprenticeship program as crew, will also be given a gala screening part of the International Spectacular line-up

Star power will also be assured on the red carpet through this year’s Red Sea honorees: Academy Award winning actress and producer Viola Davis (The Woman King, Fences) and Egyptian superstar Mona Zaki, whose recent credits include Flight 404, which is Egypt’s Oscar entry this year.

Aside from being honored, Davis will also be at the festival as the co-founder of JVL Media, the full-service production/media packaging firm and publishing house she co-founded with Julius Tennon and Lavaille Lavette.

The company will attend the festival’s Souk market and participate in the industry talks program exploring storytelling trends and funding in the region and beyond. The festival revealed that there would be 75 companies from 18 countries at the Souk this year, while its talks program is being put together in collaboration with CAA Media Finance for the first time.

Other starry titles set for Gala screenings in International Spectacular line-up include Peter Chelsom’s A Sudden Case Of Christmas, with its star Danny Devito expected to hit the red carpet in Jeddah, Pablo Larrain’s biopic Maria, starring Angelina Jolie as iconic tragic opera singer Maria Callas; Mehdi Idir’s Monsieur Aznavour, starring Tahar Rahim as the French crooner; and Thierry Teston and Lisa Azeulos’ Jane Fonda-narrated doc My Way, and We Live In Time with Florence Pugh and Andrew Garfield, and Anderson .Paak’s mainly South Korea-set musical film K-Pops!, which shot partly in Saudi Arabia’s world heritage site region of AlULa. .

The festival has yet to unveil what talent will be in attendance but it set a high bar for starry red carpets in its first three editions. The jury and its high-profile In Conversations strand have also yet to be unveiled.

The main competition will feature 15 titles from the Middle East, Africa and Asia.

A number of titles, which have already created buzz on the festival circuit, will have their MENA premieres such as Palestinian director Mahdi Fleifel’s To A Land Unknown, which debuted at Cannes Directors’ Fortnight; Afghan filmmaker Roya Sadat’s Sima’s Song, exploring the evolution of women’s rights during the Russian occupation of Afghanistan in the 1970s, and Indian director Reema Kagti’s comedy Superboys of Malegaon, based on the true story of a group of amateur filmmakers who came together to create a film that honors their city, and Iraqi-Austrian filmmaker Kurdwin Ayub’s Moon.

This year will see the festival return to Jeddah’s historic Al Balad district, after two editions at the Ritz-Carlton while the headquarters for its parent body the Red Sea Film Foundation were being built. The festival’s unveiled its promotional video for this edition, shot against the backdrop of the gentrified Al Balad quarter to give a taste of what participants and spectators can expect.

2024 Line-up TITLE/director

Red Sea: Competition (announced November 11)

SUPERBOYS OF MALEGAON
Reema Kagti

HANAMI
Denise Fernandes

TO A LAND UNKNOWN
Mahdi Fleifel

MOON
Kurdwin Ayub

SONGS OF ADAM
Oday Rasheed

RED PATH
Lotfi Achour

SNOW WHITE
Taghrid Abouelhassan

BIN U BIN, BORDER ELSEWHERE
Mohamed Lakhdar Tati

SAIFY
Wael Abumansour

AÏCHA
Mehdi M. Barsaoui

SEEKING HAVEN FOR MR RAMBO
Khaled Mansour

SIMA’S SONG
Roya Sadat

6 IN THE MORNING
Mehran Modiri

TO KILL A MONGOLIAN HORSE
Xiaoxuan Jiang

SABA
Maksud Hossain

Red Sea: International Spectacular

40 ACRES
R.T. Thorne (Canada)

A SUDDEN CASE OF CHRISTMAS
Peter Chelsom (Italy)

BETTER MAN
Michael Gracey (UK, USA, Australia)

K-POPS!
Anderson .Paak (U.S)

KRAVEN THE HUNTER
J.C. Chandor (U.S.)

MARIA
Pablo Larraín (Italy, Germany, U.S)

MODI – THREE DAYS ON THE WING OF MADNESS
Johnny Depp (UK, Italy, Hungary)

MONSIEUR AZNAVOUR
Mehdi Idir, Fabien Marsaud (France)

MY WAY
Thierry Teston, Lisa Azuelos (France, U.S.)

NAPOLI – NEW YORK
Gabriele Salvatores (Italy)

RAVENS
Mark Gill (France, Japan, Spain, Belgium)

STATE OF SILENCE
Santiago Maza (Mexico)

WE LIVE IN TIME
John Crowley (France, UK)

Red Sea: Families & Children:

NIGHT OF THE ZOOPOCALYPSE
Ricardo Curtis, Rodrigo Perez-Castro

PANDA BEAR IN AFRICA
Richard Claus, Karsten Kiilerich

SUKKAR: SABAABAA W HOUBOUB AL KHARZIZ
Tamer Mahdy

Arab Spectacular Special Screenings (Announced Nov 5)

ABDO & SANEYA
Omar Bakry

FRONT ROW
Merzak Allouache

HOBAL
Abdulaziz Alshlahei

LAIL NAHAR

MY DRIVER AND I
Ahd Kamel

Red Sea: New Vision (announced Oct 30)

ALROSHAN
Mohammed Ous

KEMOKAZI
Abdulrahman Batawie

OTHMAN IN THE VATICAN
Yasir Bin Ghanem

WHEN THE LIGHT SHINES
Ryan Al Bishri

YALLA PARKOUR
Areeb Zuaiter

Red Sea: Series (announced Oct 30)

GHOST TRAIN
 Se-Woong Tak

LOST WORLDS WITH BETTANY HUGHES: THE NABATAEANS
Jim Greayer

TALES ON BANKS OF THE BOSPHORUS
Zeina Sfeir

ZORRO
Jean Baptiste Saurel

Red Sea: Shorts Competition – Arab Selection:

FRAGMENTS OF LIFE
Anis Ben Dali

SAINT ROSE
Zayn Alexandre

THE SIGNAL
Nasser Alqattan

SHAMS
Adam Rayan

CHIKHA
Ayoub Layoussifi and Zahoua Raji

AFRICAN FAMILY DINNER
Ibrahim Mursal

IN THREE LAYERS OF DARKNESS
Houcem Slouli

CHILDREN OF BARZAGH
Ahmed Khattab

MERA, MERA, MERA
Khaled Zidan

MALIKA
Maram Taibah

LAND OF GOD
Imad Benomar

NEMSHI?
Assaf Al Rousan

FIZR
Rani Nasr

ZAHRA
Hadi Shatat

ONE LAST TIME
Karim Rahbani

Red Sea: Shorts Competition – International Selection (Announced Oct 18)

ACROSS THE WATER
Viv Li

ALAZAR
Beza Hailu Lemma

HATCH
Alireza Kazemipour and Panta Mosleh

LAI LEI
Binglin Cui

LUNGE
Negar Hassanzadeh

NAILS
Triparna Banerjee

NEVER HAVE I EVER
Joyce A. Nashawati

PIE DAN LO
Kim Yip Tong

RADIKALS
Arvin Belarmino

SANKI YOXSAN
Azer Guliev

UREFU WE KAMBA
Mageto Ndege

WASHHH
Mickey Lai

New Saudi, New Cinema Selection:

A MOSQUITO
Raneem Almohandes and Dana Almohandes

THE POST
Zakaria Albashir

THE DREAMER DREAMS
Abdulmohsen Albinali

UNDERGROUND
Abdulrahman Sandokji

PAVLOV’S BELLS
Khalid Fahad

KHAMSEN
Abdullah Alrowis

TWO SISTERS
Waleed Alqahtani

TIED
Yam Fida

WHERE’S THE IMAM?
Abrar Qari

WHEN THE SHELVES HYMN
Hanaa Saleh Alfassi

ASEER MEMORY
Saad Tahaitah

DIAA SHAMSI
Lama Jarkas

SUGAR
Khalid Bin Waleed

THE EXTRAORDINARY MISADVENTURES OF THE AMAZING BOY SUPER-BLURRY
Hassan El Hejaili

SAEED’S DAY
Mohammed Zawari

GUM
Belal Albader

THE EDGE (ORA)
Ahmed Alqithmi

THE CERTAINTY
Ahmad Kurdi

DOES IT HURT TOO BAD TO LOOK AT ME?
Rana Matar

Winners of the fourth edition of the 48 hours challenge:

ALL IN ONE NIGHT (AION)
Thoraya Akram

AFEN
Nawaf Alkinani and Othman Al Khowiter

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