GIANT First Look Photo Credit- Sam Taylor

Source: True Brit Entertainment

‘Giant’

Rowan Athale’s Giant will open the fifth Red Sea International Film Festival on Thursday, December 4, with the festival unveiling titles across three further strands including its competition.

Giant stars Amir El-Masry as British-Yemeni boxing champion Prince Naseem Hamed, and depicts the fighter’s relationship with his Irish trainer Brendan Ingle, played by Pierce Brosnan. It will be the film’s MENA premiere at Red Sea, following a world premiere at BFI London Film Festival last month.

Scroll down for the full list of new titles

A 16-strong competition lineup includes eight international titles, and eight films from the Middle East region.

The selection includes the world premiere of Barni, Mohammed Sheikh’s debut feature, about a nine-year-old girl who disappears after a wedding celebration in a quaint Somali village; and the journey of her sister and friends to find her. The film is a Somalia-Djibouti-US co-production.

Other competition titles include Cherien Dabis’s All That’s Left Of You, tracing three generations of a Palestinian family from 1948 to 2022; Lost Land, a first-ever Rohingya-language feature from Japanese filmmaker Akio Fujimoto; and Sink, the debut feature of Screen 2024 Arab Star of Tomorrow Zain Duraie, which was backed by the Red Sea Film Foundation’s fund.

Saudi best international feature Oscar submission Hijra, another Red Sea fund-backed title, is also in the competition.

The competition films are competing for the Yusr awards, presented at a ceremony towards the end of the festival.

The festival has programmed five titles each in its International Spectacular and Arab Spectacular strands. Films in the former include Alice Winocour’s Paris fashion week drama Couture starring Angelina Jolie and Olivier Assayas’s Russian political drama The Wizard Of The Kremlin starring Jude Law and Paul Dano; while the Arab strand has Annemarie Jacir’s historical drama Palestine 36 and Haifaa Al Mansour’s crime mystery Unidentified.

Kaouther Ben Hania’s The Voice Of Hind Rajab and Olivier Laxe’s Sirât – also both Oscar entries, for Tunisia and Spain – have been selected for the Special Screenings programme.

The new titles were presented at a press conference attended by Red Sea Film Foundation managing director Shivani Pandya Malhotra, director of Arab programs and film classics Antoine Khalife, and new director of international programs Fionnuala Halligan.

“It’s amazing for me to be part of a festival and foundation which emphasises women at the heart of what it does,” said Halligan. “It’s amazing and very unusual.”

Of the competition, Halligan identified “a theme of being lost and found”; while Khalife noted “a lineup that is reshaping our collective narrative by vital telling stories of resilience, migration, identity, and transformation with urgency and clarity.”

The festival released its initial Festival Favourites, New Vision, Families & Children and Series titles last week, with films including Pete Ohs’s Erupcja starring Charli XCX.

Red Sea International Film Festival 2025 runs from December 4-13 in the Saudi port city of Jeddah.

Red Sea 2025 new titles

Opening film

Giant (UK-US) dir. Rowan Athale

Competition

A Sad And Beautiful World (Leb-US-Ger-S Arabia-Qat) dir. Cyril Ayris

All That’s Left Of You (Ger-Gr-Jor-Cyp-Pal) dir. Cherien Dabis

Allah Is Not Obliged (Fr-Lux-Bel-Can-S Arabia) dir. Zaven Najjar

Barni (Som-Dji-US) dir. Mohammed Sheikh

Black Rabbit, White Rabbit (Taj-UAE) dir. Shahram Mokri

Hijra (S Arabia-Iraq-Egy-UK) dir. Shahad Ameen

Irkalla: Gilgamesh’s Dream (Iraq-UK-Fr-UAE-S Arabia-Qat) dir. Mohamed Jabarah-Al-Daradji

Lost Land (Japan-Fr-Mal-Ger) dir. Akio Fujimoto

Nighttime Sounds (China) dir. Zhang Zhongchen

Roqia (Fr-Alg-Qat-S Arabia) dir. Yanis Koussim

Sink (Jor-S Arabia-Qatar-Fr) dir. Zain Duraie

The Stories (Egy-Fr-Austria-Swe) dir. Abu Bakr Shawky

The World Of Love (S Kor) dir. Yoon Ga-Eun

Truck Mama (Ken-S Afr-S Arabia-Neth) dir. Zippy Nyaruri

Two Seasons, Two Strangers (Japan) dir. Sho Miyake

Yunan (Ger-Can-It-Pal-Qat-Jor-S Arabia) dir. Ameer Fakher Eldin

International Spectacular

Couture (Fr-US) dir. Alice Winocour

Desert Warrior (S Arabia) dir. Rupert Wyatt

Farruquito – A Flamenco Dynasty (Sp-US) dirs. Santi Aguado, Reuben Atlas

Scarlet (Japan) dir. Mamoru Hosoda

The Wizard Of The Kremlin (Fr) dir. Olivier Assayas

Arab Spectacular

A Matter Of Life And Death (S Arabia) dir. Anas Ba-Tahaf

Palestine 36 (Pal-UK-Fr-Den-Nor-Qat-S Arabia-Jor) dir. Annemarie Jacir

The Fakenapping (S Arabia) dir. Amine Lakhnech

Unidentified (S Arabia) dir. Haifaa Al Mansour

Wedding Rehearsal (Egy) dir. Amira Diab

Special Screenings

The Voice Of Hind Rajab (Tun-Fr) dir. Kaouther Ben Hania

Sirât (Sp-Fr) dir. Olivier Laxe

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