DUBAI: Saudi feature film “Hobal,” featuring actress Mila Al-Zahrani, is set to screen at international theaters.
“After the success of the movie ‘Hobal’ at the box office in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf, we embark on a new journey around the world with you. In the first phase, ‘Hobal’ will be shown in cinemas in America, Britain, Canada, Ireland and Germany. In the second stage, it will be presented in other countries,” the filmmakers announced on social media Monday.
Shot in NEOM in Saudi Arabia, the film was directed by Abdulaziz Al-Shlahei and features an all-Saudi cast, including Mohammed Al-Toyan and Mishal Al-Mutairi.
The motion picture marked Al-Shlahei’s third feature film, following the success of Saudi period drama “The Tambour of Retribution,” which received two awards at the Cairo Film Festival and was chosen as the Saudi entry for Best International Feature Film at the 94th Academy Awards in 2022.
“Hobal” tells the story of a Bedouin family, set in the early 1990s, living in extreme isolation, led by a paranoid patriarch (Ibrahim Al-Hasawi) who believes the end of times is near and strongly forbids anyone from his family to venture into town.
The family’s situation intensifies when Rifa (Amal Sami), the teen girl, falls gravely ill with a highly contagious case of measles and is forced to isolate even further in a tent alone. Her anguished mother (Al-Zahrani) is consumed with worry, but the men, under the strict guidance of the patriarch, refuse to leave the desert to seek medical help. The women — and young teen boy, Assaf — are confronted with a dilemma: survival or obedience.
The film’s scriptwriter, Mufarrej Al-Majfel, was one of the winners and a recipient of a fund award at the Saudi Film Commission’s Daw Film Competition, an initiative launched by Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Culture in September 2019.
Al-Zahrani took to social media to share the announcement about the film’s international release on Monday.
The Saudi star, who is also the face of French jewelry label Boucheron’s Quatre collection, has walked the red carpet at a number of international events, including the Red Sea Film Festival in Jeddah and the 77th Cannes Film Festival in France.
