“Flexibility” and “listening” are the buzz words for international independent producers considering Saudi Arabia for their next project, according to two UK producers with recent experience of filming in the country.
Georgie Paget and Thembisa Cochrane of the UK’s Caspian Films produced Ahd Kamel’s Jeddah-set debut feature My Driver And I, which had its world premiere on Friday (December 6) in the Arab Spectacular strand of Red Sea International Film Festival.
Inspired by Ahd’s own upbringing, the film follows a strong-willed Saudi girl’s relationships with both her family and a Sudanese driver. Pan-Arab studio MAD Solutions handles world sales, with Dubai-based broadcaster OSN (also a backer like MAD) distributing in the Middle East.
“It’s about finding the right people,” is Paget’s tip to interested producers. “Find that indie crowd who are passionate cinephiles and excited to be working with international crews. A great infrastructure is beginning to emerge.”
Cochrane adds: “The Saudi film industry is very new, so people might go there and say, ‘We’re going to tell you how to do things.’ That’s a mistake. They have expertise and ways of working that are suited to Saudi and will work there, so it’s worth listening.”
The producers were introduced to Ahd in 2019 when preparing to shoot their feature The Colour Room. “She already had an advanced draft of her script,” says Paget. “I related to so much of what was on the page, even though it was her experience growing up in Saudi in the 1980s and ’90s.”
The producing duo first came to Saudi for a screening of The Colour Room at Red Sea’s first edition in 2021. Their second trip a year later saw them straight into prep, ahead of a six-week shoot from February 2023. Further backers included the Red Sea Film Fund and the UK Global Screen Fund.
Ahd is not at the festival as she is due to give birth. Paget pays testament to the director’s persistence in bringing the film to fruition: “It’s hard to get anything up-front from distributors or sales agents on a debut.
“It’s testament to Ahd, but also to the guts and foresight of OSN and MAD, to think this is a film people are going to want to watch, that they’re willing to invest in.”