When asked to describe this year’s edition of the Red Sea Souk, the Arab region’s largest market nested under the dates of the Red Sea Film Festival, market director Holly Daniel is direct and concise: “Bigger.” A year after first taking over the position, Daniel is leading the major industry event into its most ambitious edition yet, taking place in a new, larger home connected to the festival base in Jeddah’s Culture Square by a physical overpass that symbolizes the event’s ambitions to become a bridge between the Middle East and North Africa region and Asia and the remainder of the world.
“This year everything is bigger and more developed,” says Daniel. “Our exhibition hall is bigger than last year. Over 70% of our exhibitors are new. We are looking at 166 this year, up from 142 last year. There is much more of an international mix, and we have 13 country pavilions. There is a real understanding that Red Sea is the place to come to.”
Between Dec. 6-10, senior executives from major players such as Netflix, Amazon, Disney and MBC will head to Jeddah to take part in the Souk, with the market hosting dozens of talks and events including case studies on big Hollywood productions shot in Saudi like “Desert Warrior” and “Kandahar.”
Asked what her key priorities were for this year, Daniel says she and her team wanted to “engage with partners more.” It helped that the physical space of the Souk has been increased, allowing the event an additional room for talks and an extra workshop area, two rooms that have been made available for industry partners to curate their own sessions. Daniel’s team also welcomed new curator Wendy Mitchell, who has steered industry sidebars at prominent festivals such as San Sebastian and Sundance London.
Key talks this year include conversations on how to work with MENA partners, India’s creative economy, understanding Saudi audiences, contemporary Palestinian cinema and Arab distribution. On the talents side, organized by the Red Sea Labs, participating members will have access to exclusive conversations and workshops by big Hollywood names like “Breaking Bad” actor Giancarlo Esposito and “Black Swan” director Darren Aronofsky.
“We definitely wanted to enhance our talks program,” adds the director. “We had a very strong program last year and worked closely with CCA to curate it. This year, we wanted to have our own in-house team for that. Wendy has great contacts, experiences and networks, so we have a team that has been able to broaden our focus. We wanted to show that Red Sea is a bridge between different territories, and that we can showcase those regions to the global industry as well.”
Talking about this desire to become a bridge, Daniel emphasizes that the Red Seam team spent a great deal of time and energy on outreach over the last year, with a particular focus on raising awareness that the Jeddah-based event had recently begun welcoming projects, films, and talent from Asia. When attending key events like Berlin, Cannes and Venice, Daniel has noticed “there has been an increase in people wanting to come to Red Sea.” “From the people we’ve been meeting through outreach, there is a lot of interest both in Saudi, the festival and the region. We’ve had a lot more applications for our project market and talent program. Across everything we are doing, it’s been really positive.”
The director says that the work of the other arms of the Red Sea Film Foundation, like the Red Sea Fund and Red Sea Labs, has helped bolster the image of the fete abroad. “The fund is doing some great work, supporting amazing projects, and we work very closely with the Saudi Film Commission, who have great representation at all the international markets. We work with them to ensure the presence of the Saudi industry is visible and engagement is happening at an international level.”
With more interest from the industry, the Souk is naturally becoming more competitive when it comes to projects selected to pitch and present at the market. “There has definitely been an increase in applications from across Asia,” notes Daniel. “We only opened to Asia last year, and the word is definitely spreading. We also have a lot more local applications from Saudi, and it’s getting more and more competitive. It’s great to see the interest and the strong ideas coming through.”
This competition brought with it a few structural changes to the selection process. Daniel notes they now have a much wider pool of international project readers, and all projects have a minimum of three reads, with one reader always coming from the same region as the project. “There are a lot more industry voices feeding back on the projects, which has been really beneficial to our process and in helping identify the strong mix we’ll present during the Souk.”
As for what a successful edition would look like to Daniel, she says it is all about the connections being made on the ground. “We are always looking to see successful outcomes for the projects in the project market. We want to see them playing festivals the following year or the year after. We also want our exhibitors to have a positive business experience. But, going back to what I was saying about us being a bridge in the region, what we want is to see true connections being made in the Souk.”
