At this year's festival, the Gulf states have been making a play for the global film industry.Andreea Alexandru/The Associated Press
Officially, Japan is this year’s “Country of Honour” at the Cannes Film Festival, a designation chosen by organizers at least two years in advance that results in panels, ceremonies and screenings galore. Unofficially, though, it feels as if the 79th edition of Cannes is focused on a different region: the Gulf States.
Nearly everywhere you turn in and around the French Riviera, there are signs – often literal – that Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar are making a massive play for the global film industry.
Just across from the festival’s main hub of the Palais, a 3½-storey banner advertises Riyadh’s Jax Film Studios, billed as “the world’s most advanced” virtual production studio. Organizers from Jeddah’s Red Sea Film Foundation have been staging one splashy event after another at such ritzy locales as the Hotel Du Cap and the Carlton Hotel, featuring red carpets filled with regionally based celebrities. And on Friday, the Saudi Film Commission hosted a tony invite-only brunch on the beach, featuring a qanun player, delicately arranged appetizers, and the best seaside view in town – although naturally not a drop of alcohol in sight.
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It is all part of the oil-rich region’s bid to make itself an indispensable part of the international entertainment ecosystem. Hollywood producers, increasingly desperate for money as Wall Street tilts its investments toward Big Tech, have turned to the region for an influx of seemingly free-flowing cash and expanding new audiences. (After lifting its nearly four-decade religious-based ban on moviegoing in 2018, Saudi Arabia is already the world’s 15th largest box-office market.) In return, Middle Eastern states gain economic diversification and a high-gloss avenue to spread soft power.
But the strategy has not come without its significant tremors.
A handful of Gulf State sovereign wealth funds are providing billions in financing toward Paramount’s proposed acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery, which has raised the eyebrows of politicians in the United States and Europe, who fear any political influence by foreign states into the operation of, say, CNN. (A filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission notes that the wealth funds will have no governance rights in the merged company.)
A number of Gulf State sovereign wealth funds are providing billions in financing toward Paramount’s proposed takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery.Manon Cruz/Reuters
Meanwhile, high-priced productions coming out of the region have failed to catch fire in either the Middle East or the West, with this spring’s action epic Desert Warrior looking like it will go down as one of the biggest flops in box-office history. And the U.S.- and Israel-led war against Iran has exponentially complicated matters, from infrastructure to travel.
Yet if you were looking for pessimism in Cannes, it was nowhere to be found.
“The appetite is massive right now. The infrastructure is being developed, the tax incentives are there, and there’s a lot of excitement and momentum,” says Majd Nassif, founder of the production company Longevity Pictures, whose offices are split between Los Angeles and Abu Dhabi. “The UAE has been doing this for a long time now, 20 years, but Saudi Arabia is building itself up.”
Nassif, who has worked with everyone from Hollywood mainstay Charles Roven (The Dark Knight) to the Kazakh-Russian filmmaker/tech guru Timur Bekmambetov (Night Watch), is at Cannes to convince the world that the future of the film sector rests in Middle East partnerships. But he is also on a mission to use Western interest as a springboard to develop local talent.
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“It has to be both. There’s a bit of a learning curve in Hollywood to walk people through working in the region, how to get them over there,” he says. “But on the other end, there are opportunities for developing stories and voices from the region, too.”
In terms of political tensions or pushback, Nassif hasn’t seen that rise to the surface in conversations with dealmakers on the ground in Cannes. Although the producer does acknowledge that the continuing war in Iran has complicated things for the sector, if momentarily.
“The overall regional sense is that this is all transitionary, it’s all temporary. Obviously, the region has been going through situations like this for years and years, so if anything, it is empowering everyone in the industry,” Nassif says. “Now, we really need to double down and get our entertainment sector off the ground, because that’s what moves us forward.”
In terms of any role that Canada might play, Telefilm boasts 57 co-production treaties – but none with any Gulf states. There is word inside the industry, though, that the federal agency is monitoring how such countries as the UAE and Qatar might build on their industry ambitions.
Meanwhile, the scene inside the Saudi Film Commission brunch was buoyant, with digital placards advertising the region’s 60-per-cent cash rebate and the slogan, “More freedom to bring bigger stories to life.” It will be up to the rest of the world, though, just how big into the Middle East that they want to go.