Asmae El Moudir’s Holy Cow and CJ ‘Fiery’ Obasi’s La Pyramide are among 38 feature film and television projects selected for the Red Sea Souk Project Market, at Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea Film Festival (December 5-14).
Selected in the ‘in development’ section, El Moudir’s Moroccan feature Holy Cow (working title) follows a truck driver transporting cattle for slaughter houses in Rabat, who becomes the scapegoat when two cows escape.
Scroll down for the full list of projects
It is a debut fiction feature for Moroccan filmmaker El Moudir, who won the best director prize at Cannes 2023 with her documentary The Mother Of All Lies.
Nigerian filmmaker Obasi participates in the Souk with La Pyramide, a co-production between the US, Brazil, Senegal, the UK and Nigeria. With the extended title La Pyramide: A Celebration of Dark Bodies, Obasi has described the film as “an extension of what I did with Mami Wata” – his 2023 thriller about a village under threat, that played at Sundance and was Nigeria’s Oscar entry.
The 38 Red Sea Souk projects are split between 12 ‘in development projects’; 12 Lodge projects, 11 of which are debut features; seven works-in-progress; and seven SeriesLab titles.
Works-in-progress include Damien Hauser’s Swiss-Kenyan co-production Memory Of Princess Mumbi, and Levan Koguashvili’s Guria, set during a civil war in the eponymous Georgian region in 1992.
Sofia Alaoui, a 2022 Screen Arab Star of Tomorrow, participates in the Lodge with Tarfaya, a thriller set in a Moroccan coastal town. The project will then go to the Les Arcs Coproduction Village after Red Sea.
“As we open our Project Market up to the whole of Asia for the first time, the 38 projects in selection this year represent some of the most original talent and stories from across the two continents,” said Red Sea Souk director Holly Daniel.
The selected projects are eligible for the Red Sea Souk and Red Sea Labs awards, which totalled over $880,000 (£696,462) at the 2023 festival.
Red Sea Souk 2024 projects
In development
Do Re Mimi (S Arabia) dir. Fatima Al-Banawi
Farouk (Iraq-Nor) dir. Halkawt Mustafa
Haven Of Hope (Pak) dir. Seemab Gul
Holy Cow (working title) (Mor) dir. Asmae El Moudir
It’s Okay, I’m Only Human (Leb-Fr) dirs. Karim Ghorayeb, George Peter Barbari
La Pyramide (US-Braz-Sen-UK-Nig) dir. CJ ‘Fiery’ Obasi
Mother Maybe (Phi-Sing-Tai) dir. Sonny Calvento
Robbing Beirut (Leb-Fr) dir. Katia Jarjoura
Tahmina (Neth-Can-Afg-Ger) dir. Aboozar Amini
The Loneliness Of The Light Skin One (Bel-Fr-Neth-Con-S Afr) dir. Baloji Tshiani
The Sea Was Once Blue (Egy-Fr) dir. Mohamad El-Hadidi
Watch It Burn (Indonesia) dir. Makbul Mubarak
Lodge
Assa, A Fish In A Bowl (Leb) dir. Dahlia Nemlich
Blue Card (Sud-Egy) dir. Mohammed Alomda
I Didn’t Sign Up For This (Sud-Egy) dir. Lana Komsany
Hadd (S Arabia) dir. Jamal Kutbi
Close Rose Close (S Arabia) dir. Rulan Hasan
I’ll Smile In September (India) dir. Aakash Chhabra
Jaysan (Kyr) dir. Aisha Sultanbekova
The Silent Ones (Mor) dir. Jawahine Zentar
Pepo Kali (Ken) dir. Lydia Matata
Tarfaya (Mor) dir. Sofia Alaoui
Terbakar (Indonesia-Sing) dir. Shelby Kho
Manjano (Ken) dir. Omar Hamza
Works-in-Progress
A Winner Is Seen At The Start (Fr-Kaz-Neth-Lith) dir. Zhannat Alshanova
Allah Is Not Obliged (Fr-Lux-Bel-Can) dir. Zaven Najjar
Dandelion’s Odyssey (Jap-Fr-Bel) dir. Momoko Seto
Fuxi (Tai-HK) dir. Qiu Jiongjiong
Guria (Geo-Switz-Lux-Bul-Tur) dir. Levan Koguashvilil
Memory Of Princess Mumbi (Switz-Ken) dir. Damien Hauser
Vagabonds (Gha) dir. Amartei Armar
SeriesLab
B’itha (S Arabia) cres. Noorah Al Eidi, Shehreyar Ahsan
Saria Othman Needs No Man (Leb) cres. Eshtephan Khattar, Hiba Louis
Pazuzu (Iraq-S Arabia) cres. Ali Kareem, Dania Altayeb
Generation A (Ken) cres. Mona Ombogo, Louise Kamwangi
Switch (Ug) cres. Nathan Magoola, Lucky Lora Atwine
Cold Case-One (Pullukandam Murder Case) (India) cres. Nithin Lukose, Hari Kirishnan
Shani Bazaar (India) cres. Karan Kabir, Nitin Koul
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