Sundance, Saudi-Style
Cinemas are banned in Saudi Arabia, but the country’s first-ever film festival is a sign of progress.
By Robert Lacey,ROBERT LACEY, author of “The Kingdom,” is writing a social history of Saudi Arabia in the last 30 years. [He is also the author of The Kingdom, published in 1981, which remains one of the better histories of the country.]
AMID THE GLOOMY news emerging from the Middle East, it is encouraging to report one item of cultural progress: the convening of Saudi Arabia’s first-ever film festival. This in Islam’s heartland, where cinemas do not officially exist.
Cannes it is not. Held in the austere exhibition galleries of Jeddah’s Science and Technology Center, the film festival lacks celebrities, red carpet, popping flashguns and, saddest of all, popcorn. On the evening I attended, a Friday night, half the lobby was occupied by the projectionist and the docents of the center saying their prayers. Following another hallowed Saudi tradition, the screening commenced 30 minutes late.
The Los Angeles Times runs a great article about the first Saudi film festival to be held in recent times. Lacey notes that attendance was light, but that the mere fact of holding the festival—as well as the themes of the films—was of significance. It’s a start…
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July:28:2006 - 13:15
Good, the Saudi princes have finally found another avenue of propoganda brainwashing for their benighted little hellhole.
July:28:2006 - 13:15
You are welcome to your opinion, however ill-informed it may be.
July:28:2006 - 13:15
Converting to Islam is not enough
Let’s not be liberal idiots, the recent warnings to the West to Convert or Die will not end there. Conversion will not be enough; all the rest of what we take as Western Culture will have to go.
July:28:2006 - 13:15
Let’s not get carried away here…
Those that call for the forceable conversion of non-Muslims to Islam are both a fractional minority and professing a belief that is unacceptable both to the majority of Muslims and, of course, non-Muslims. To pretend that this is what all Muslims seek is just wacky.