Several dozen films from the Kingdom, the Gulf, Japan and the US will be shown over four days as part of the Third Jeddah Film Festival. The festival will be launched by Mayor of Jeddah Adel Faqeeh July 22. “50 directors from Saudi Arabia, Bahrain , Qatar, Kuwait, USA and Japan will show some of the 67 films, however Japanese actors will display animated films only,” said Mamdoh Salim, supervisor of the film festival. This year will be the first time Saudi women will be allowed to show their own films. Two Saudi female film makers will be making their debut at the festival, Salim said. “Lamia Ba-Eshin will participate with her film about stories from popular Saudi folklore. The other female film maker is professor Nora Dabagh who will show an animated film titled Journey,” Salim said. The festival will be divided into three different categories; fiction, documentaries, and animation. Salim said the longest film is 100 minutes long, whereas the shortest film will be less than 10 minutes long. This year's festival, unlike previous festivals will have three categories of prizes at the end; best story, best performance, and best cinematography. Two workshops will be held in addition to the film festival. One will teach how to maintain a documentary budget and the second will focus on photography and direction, which will be taught by an American director. __
