RIYADH: When Saudi film director and producer Aymen Khoja started his own company, AK Pictures, two years ago, most of his pitches were rejected by investors. Half-jokingly, he told his business partner that he wished he was a foreigner. “If my hair was blond and my eyes were blue, they would’ve accepted at least five of these projects,” he tells Arab News that he said. “And then I looked at him, like, ‘Oh. This could be an idea.’”
It was. And now that idea has become “Il Signore,” Khoja’s latest film as director, currently showing in cinemas across the GCC.
“Il Signore” is, Khoja says, “a light comedy” about a Saudi architect called Salem, who has been working hard to earn a promotion. But on the day he comes to the office expecting to be told that he has been successful in his endeavours, he learns that he is being fired instead, because a Westerner working in the company “put in a word” that Salem wasn’t needed anymore.
Saudi film director and producer Aymen Khoja has his own company, AK Pictures. (Supplied)
Salem searches for a new senior-level job, but most of the positions he applies for are taken by expats. Desperate, Salem decides to adopt a fake identity — an Italian called Paolo.
“That’s the fun journey you’ll see in the first 20 or 30 minutes of the film, until he becomes the Italian guy,” says Khoja. “And then his life changes. He gets the Porsche, he gets the high salary, and he gets the lifestyle that he wanted to have as a Saudi. But he doesn’t have it as a Saudi, he has it as an Italian. And then he faces this identity problem. And he has to decide if he can confess to his family or not.
“It’s so different from any other Saudi film,” Khoja continues. “It’s timely. I think it’s very important to discuss these challenges. I don’t want to call this a problem; it’s a challenge that we see around us. We’re not saying Westerners or experts coming from outside, are not adding value. No. They are adding value. At the same time, we’re saying Saudis deserve a chance. And how can we find the right balance between learning from the people coming from outside with experience, and also giving an opportunity to the locals?”
A still from 'Il Signore.' (Supplied)
The film has “nothing to do with politics,” Khoja is quick to stress. “It’s purely comedy. When we made this film, we thought of three things: We wanted to entertain people, we wanted to touch people, and we wanted to fulfill people. We never thought about politics. We’re discussing this issue from a comedic point of view. And the takeaway is just that I think there are some locals that deserve a chance.”
Finding an actor who could portray Salem/Paolo was also a challenge, Khoja says. “The reason why I picked Yasir (Alsaggaf) to act this role is I needed an actor that, when people look at him, they believe that he’s Italian, but they also believe he’s Saudi. That was really hard, but that’s why we cast Yasir.”
“Il Signore” also features Egyptian A-lister Bayoumi Fouad as Paolo’s boss. “The great thing about Bayoumi is, he can play the comedic and the serious at the same time, so you never know, like, ‘Is he serious? Is he joking?’ We needed someone like him to play this part. And you can see that chemistry between Yasir and Bayoumi. It’s there.”
A still from 'Il Signore.' (Supplied)
Khoja practiced what he’s preaching in terms of giving Saudis a chance when he was putting his crew together. He estimates it was a roughly even split between Saudis and non-Saudis. “We had people from Tunisia, from Egypt, the UAE. We did the United Arab nation,” he says with a laugh. “But I would say more than 50 percent were Saudi.”
Clearly, he’s keen to support Saudi’s blossoming film industry. But he’s also eager to ensure that it is approached as a business, with the need to turn a profit.
“Il Signore,” Khoja says, is a “high-quality, very low” budget film shot over just 18 days, following two months of preparation.
“If you make movies that cost, say, two or three million dollars, how are you going to bring profits from the box office?” he says. “The risk is so high. You don’t need a lot of money. It’s about the stories, the characters… it’s about the idea. Honestly, I asked for this (low) budget specifically. We did this to help stabilize the market. This is a statement, because if we keep spending money to make films that don’t make money, then this industry will not survive. The support of the government isn’t going to last forever. We need the private sector to understand how to make movies within a budget that actually brings in profits so we can build a sustainable industry. That’s the goal. We could have pitched this film for three million dollars, but we chose this budget because now we only need around 50,000 admissions to break even. And our projection is about 250,000 admissions.
“You know, we care about what we do. And we care about building a sustainable industry. It’s such a great industry. You can impact people’s lives,” he continues. “That’s why I love movies. People might be sad, they watch a film, they’re happy, you know? And that’s why I believe in what I’m doing. I like making films because it changes people.”
Ultimately, Khoja wants to see not just his own movies flourishing, but the entire Saudi film industry.
“I want to make movies that travel to the 400 million people that live in the Arab world. And I want to help other filmmakers (do that too),” he says. “I want Saudi films to fly.”
