About the Commission:
The Film Commission is a Saudi government body affiliated with the Ministry of Culture, established in February 2020, and based in the capital, Riyadh. The Commission aims to advance the film sector and the production environment in Saudi Arabia, in addition to stimulating and empowering Saudi filmmakers.
Vision:
Our vision is for the Kingdom to be a leading country in the filmmaking industry.
Mission:
The Commission will work to enhance the competitiveness of the national economy by supporting the growth of the filmmaking industry and cinematic culture in Saudi Arabia, and by highlighting the Film Commission as the primary patron of the film industry in the Middle East and North Africa.
CEO
Abdullah Al Eyyaf Al-Qahtani is a filmmaker, novelist, and engineer who has won local and regional awards. He was appointed CEO of the Saudi Film Commission in June 2020. He graduated from King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals and worked as an engineer at Saudi Aramco and held a number of positions there, including head of programs and initiatives at King Abdulaziz Center for World Culture (Ithraa), as well as head of media relations, audiovisual production, events, and other departments.
Message from the CEO
Saudi cinema is starting a new journey, through which we revitalize the local filmmaking industry and encourage our talents, as an ideal opportunity to build an authentic Saudi cinema that reaches and inspires the whole world with its stories and characters. The Commission was established at the beginning of the year 2020, but our cinematic movement far preceded that. As the Saudi film was present on several levels with its independent tools that put their first marks.
Today, the Kingdom is expanding its cinemas in various cities, activating local and international festivals, and enabling special support and financing funds for films. These developments will lead the industry to drive forward many aspects including creativeness, economy, culture and entertainment. In addition, this will enhance the presence at international festivals, and build a promising cinematic environment in the Kingdom comparable to the filmmakers' communities in the world.
As of now, although the Kingdom is an emerging cinematic country, the independent experiences gained over more than 30 years have formed a movement that has kept the Saudi film alive and an ambassador representing the country in many regional and international festivals and competitions. We now aspire to produce and display award winning local stories, popular folk tales, and legends of cities and villages on big screens.
How are we going to do that?
We will start by establishing an infrastructure that meets the requirements of the local film, with the filming technology of the foreign film. We will move forward in qualifying our cinematic talents with the best local and international expertise. We also aspire to register our unique sites that are extended over 13 regions as a library of filming locations that do justice to our environments, stories and people. We will also dedicate time and effort to contain our film archives with the best preservative and tradable technologies. All in all, this is only a glimpse of the various plans the Commission intends to achieve in the future.
Perhaps a number of countries and organizations around the world have preceded us in this field, but we have confidence in our own success factors; The unique terrain and the diverse climate, true authentic tales, and above all that, the Saudi talent, who has always been the winning card.
2021-2023
2024-2027
2028-2030