Film Journal July 2018

He’s restored women’s right to drive,
to join the military, to vote and to own
a business. In 2016, he created a new
General Entertainment Authority (GEA),
the General Authority for Culture, and
the General Sports Authority. Their roles:
develop the entertainment, culture and
sports sectors; act as the subsectors’
primary regulators; promote events in
Saudi; and participate in international
platforms and organizations.
Already they’ve brought new
concerts—including the first all-femaleperformer
concert in the country’s
history, a jazz festival, marathons, a
ComicCon convention and a monster
truck rally. All have been hugely successful.
“Before the GEA was established in
2016, there were only 500 events, 200,000
visitors, and ten cities were covered,”
said His Excellency Ahmed Al Khateeb,
chairman of the General Entertainment
Authority, speaking at “A Summit on the
Future of Entertainment in Saudi Arabia”
in Beverly Hills, CA in April. “In our first
year, we held 2,200 events and sold eight
million tickets—and food and beverage—
in forty cities. This year, we are targeting
five thousand events with 15 million
visitors in 55 cities.”
There’s a new excitement in the
country and it starts at the top.
In its 86-year history, Saudi Arabia has
been ruled by seven kings; the next one
will be very different. M.B.S. is described
as charismatic, charming, tough—and,
of course, young. In his position, he has
influence without precedent in a kingdom
whose human resources and business
climate provide solid foundations for his
ambition.
Saudi Arabia is a hub between Europe,
Asia and Africa. There are 25 industrial
cities in the kingdom, 27 airports and
10 seaports. Out of a population of 32
million people, the majority are under 30
years of age. The economy is fast-growing
and stable; there are no taxes on personal
income, sales or property.
But the economy relies heavily on
oil—the kingdom exports almost nothing
else; it imports nearly everything else.
Education and healthcare are free; food,
electricity and housing are subsidized. Yet,
the ability to provide those services to
a growing population depends on oil at
prices they may never reach again.
When M.B.S. toured the U.S. in the
spring, he met with venture capitalists in
San Francisco. “In twenty years, oil goes
to zero” he said in his remarks. “I have
twenty years to reorient my country and
to launch it into the future.”
Pressure is also coming from another
source. Every year, the Saudi government
sends 70,000 students to the U.S. for
education. They return as highly motivated
young professionals who want to work
outside of the gas and oil industries. And
they expect to have what they had in the
U.S.—which includes access to the cinema.
To address those concerns and others,
M.B.S. created “Vision 2030”—a plan with
quantifiable goals to reduce the country’s
dependence on oil, diversify the Saudi
economy, transform its society—and
make Saudi Arabia the best investment
opportunity in the Middle East.
“This is leadership deciding that we
have a huge potential we need to unlock,”
affirms Mohammad al-Shaikh, the Saudi
minister of state. M.B.S. calls it: Reform
based on responsibility and accountability.
Over the next decade, Vision 2030 is
intended to encourage entrepreneurship
and foreign investment—and privatize
state-owned industries, including all
sectors except security and sovereign
areas. They expect to raise nongovernment
contributions from 45
percent to 65 percent of the Gross
National Product and to make a
quantum leap in many sectors, including
entertainment.
“We have very strong ambitions to
unlock the potential of the people of our
country,” confirms Loai Bafaqeeh, CEO
of the Kingdom’s Quality of Life Program
2020. “The challenge for us is how to
capitalize on existing opportunities. The
government can afford to do what we
need, but that’s not the right model for
the long term. We want to partner with
others.”
The government itself is spending
$64 billion to rebuild the country’s
entertainment industry, including $10
billion to rebuild the film industry. They’re
inviting exhibitors and others to join them.
It’s a decided break with the recent past.
Forty years ago, cinemas were
prevalent in the kingdom. Although they
were seen as contrary to Arab cultural
norms, they weren’t considered un-
Islamic. But when rebels seized the Grand
Mosque in 1979, King Khaled responded
by giving religious conservatives more
power. Among their actions: Close music
shops and cinemas.
In the 1980s, some improvised movie
halls were still operating in a few cities
in the kingdom, but eventually they were
also shut down. Until recently, there’s
been only one public cinema in Saudi
Arabia, an IMAX theatre in Khobar. It
shows educational documentaries during
non-prayer times.
The Saudi film industry itself
continued to produce a limited number
of feature and documentary films. Haifaa
al-Mansour’s feature Wadjda became
the first Saudi film submitted for Oscar
consideration in 2013; Mahmoud
Sabbagh’s Barakah Meets Barakah
premiered at the Berlin International Film
Festival in 2016. In March 2018, the fourth
annual Dhahran Film Festival had 59 Saudi
films on its program. The films ran from
10 to 30 minutes, with a new category
introduced this year—50-minute movies.
While satellite television and movie
downloads are readily available and short
films on YouTube are highly popular, Saudis
have an appetite for the cinema; it’s why
many drive for hours to see a film in
Bahrain or fly to Dubai for the weekend.
By government estimates, 80
percent of the total Saudi spend on
entertainment—$5.8 billion—is spent
abroad. To plug that “leak,” M.B.S. has
vowed to move his country towards a
more tolerant form of Islam, which will
allow the return of movie theatres.
“The restoration of cinema will be
an important lever, stimulating economic
growth and diversification, creating more
jobs and enriching the entertainment
options here in Saudi Arabia, the largest
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