DUBAI: Following hot on the heels of Netflix’s first Saudi original comedy series “Tahir’s House,” the global streamer has just announced another Jeddah-set original series that is tailor-made to get the Kingdom talking.
Created by Saudi filmmaker Nora Aboushousha (“Lucky You Are Mine”), “Crashing Eid” is family drama-comedy that tackles societal romantic taboos with both an irreverent spirit and a warm heart, set to debut worldwide on Oct. 19.
The show follows Razan (Summer Shesha), a Saudi woman living in the UK with her teenage daughter who plans to marry a British-Pakistani man under the assumption that her family will approve the pairing without question. When she returns home during Ramadan, with her fiancé following soon after as an uninvited guest, she soon finds that breaking with tradition may be harder than she had originally thought — to both hilarious and dramatic results.
Aboushousha, herself from Jeddah, is a rising star in the Kingdom, with her one-location lockdown crime series “Rahin Altaqiq” and drama comedy about rebellious young Saudi woman “Confessions” both becoming viral hits over the last few years. She is also no stranger to pushing boundaries, with her short “Lucky You Are Mine” winning a production grant by the Saudi Film Commission before debuting at the 2022 Red Sea International Film Festival in her hometown to strong acclaim.
“We started off with a concept of someone who is different from their family, and that grew into this story of a single mother who returns from abroad. We started wondering, what will inspire the clash with the rest of the family? And immediately we realized, ‘oh, she should come back ready to be married to someone from outside the culture!’ Everything fell into place from there,” Aboushousha told Arab News.
For Shesha, who steps into her first major lead role as Razan, the project inspired her not only because of the ways that the conceit allows each member of the family to flourish as they grapple with the events it sets into motion, but because the themes are so easy to relate to for so many people across the world.
“First of all, this show is awesome. I really think it is. That drew me to it to begin with. But it also mattered to me that this is on Netflix worldwide. This is a show with global themes of family, conflict and love. I really wanted a show that both felt specific and universal and this show has really captures that,” Shesha told Arab News.
