“I can’t wait to go back,” says Egyptian producer Mohamed Hefzy of his experience shooting Abu Bakr Shawky’s camel-racing epic Hajjan at Neom. “Neom was both beautiful and inspiring and Neom’s Media team was very supportive of the project in every way.”
Hajjan (‘jockey’ in Arabic) is a coming-of-age adventure set in the Bedouin world of camel races, following a teenage boy whose resources are tested when tragedy strikes, and he is called to rescue his beloved camel Hofira. The film had its world premiere at Toronto International Film Festival in September, before a highly anticipated regional premiere at Red Sea International Film Festival this week.
It was one of the first films to shoot in Neom in November 2022, with additional locations including the neighbouring town of Tabuk, as well as Jordan, shooting at Wadi Rum and in the capital Amman.
“A lot of times it was a matter of not just figuring things out but working out how to improve things on the ground,” Hefzy says of his experience working with Neom. “Things like how to really help the producers, the production companies and, at the same time, maximise the benefit for the location, which is obviously the end goal.
“In my opinion, the Neom team have done that extremely well, given the challenges of establishing a new destination for production.”
Hefzy adds: “They have been very agile and that is one of Neom’s strengths — being able to adapt to the requirements of a particular project.”
No stranger to international and local hits, Hefzy is a screenwriter and producer who founded Cairo-based production company Film Clinic in 2005. His projects range from this year’s Egyptian Oscar submission Voy! Voy! Voy! to the Arabic remake of Perfect Strangers, starring Nadine Labaki and Mona Zaki, streamed by Netflix in 2022.
For Hajjan, the production worked through servicing company Yellow Camel on the ground, with the film’s Jordanian producer Rula Nasser’s The Imaginarium Films at the “centre of everything in terms of doing the deals with Yellow Camel and Neom”, Hefzy explains (he is credited as producer alongside Nasser and Ithra’s head of performing arts and cinema Majed Z Samman).
In terms of financial incentives, Hefzy confirms Neom provided “catering and accommodations, interns on set, some equipment, and facilities, office space, trucks — different logistical support — and when you look at the Saudi spend, all that constitutes a significant amount.”
While the production did not receive a cash rebate, it did benefit from “most importantly, support for the film with marketing, a lot of PR, speaking about the film at a lot of international film festivals and markets”, on behalf of Neom. “[It] is great, because I think Hajjan will go down as one of the success stories of the early phase of Neom,” Hefzy says. “Yes, there have been bigger films and bigger TV projects shot there, but I hope this is a film that will be well-received and therefore reflects nicely on Neom.”
Strategic location
For Hefzy, Neom was appealing for its strategic location, both natural — the varied ecosystems of northwest of Saudi Arabia — and physical, being just over an hour’s drive from Tabuk’s international airport.
“We were always flying into Tabuk, but there is [now] an international airport in Neom itself, with regular direct flights from Dubai and London, and they are adding further destinations all the time,” Hefzy adds.
All the leads in the film are played by Saudi actors, including the popular Abdulmohsen Alnemr, while Saudi extras were provided by Yellow Camel. However, Hefzy points out that because “cinema is quite new [in Saudi], it is harder to find extras there with different looks and types and it is also expensive”.
Now Hefzy is looking forward to returning to Neom. “I am involved with films that are going to be shooting there in the coming months,” he confirms, “I’m co-producing a couple of films that are going to be shooting partly and sometimes almost entirely in Neom, starting in a couple of weeks.”
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