Saudi director Mahmoud Sabbagh ’s film " Barakah Meets Barakah " is set to screen at the 41st Toronto International Film Festival in Canada.
The festival, which will take place Sept. 8 to 18, will screen the film as part of the Special Presentations section. This comes after the film’s win of the Ecumenical Jury Prize at the Berlin International Film Festival in February, where the comedy premiered to sold-out crowds . "Barakah Meets Barakah" also screened at the Sydney Film Festival last June.
Set in Jeddah, and starring Hisham Fageeh and Fatima Al Banawi, the comedy traces a complicated relationship between a young couple trying to find a way to date in the conservative kingdom. Fageeh plays an amateur actor who falls for an Internet-famous adopted daughter of a wealthy Saudi couple. Attracted to one another, the young lovers must navigate the constraints of societal segregation to spend time together.
“I wanted to make a film about the disenfranchised youth, the millennials, who are more voiceless and have less political representation, less economic opportunities.” Sabbagh told the Hollywood Reporter . “It’s also about censorship, the layers of censorship and authority.”
Sabbagh pointed out that “it’s a love story against the odds.”
However, as the filmmaker told Al Jazeera, the comedy is also a commentary on public space in the conservative kingdom.
“In the last 30 years, public space in Saudi Arabia is getting smaller, there is less room for liberals, for women, for minorities. They are less visible in the streets, so no one wants to watch a film in a public space,” he said. “So I had to make a love story, and in the background there is the story of the city and of public space.”
Although Saudi Arabia isn’t known for filmmaking – there aren’t any cinemas in the kingdom – a large group of young comedians, actors and filmmakers have drawn international acclaim for their YouTube shows. Other Saudi documentaries and films have drawn regional and international praise.
The lead actor in Sabbagh’s film, Fageeh, shot to Internet fame in 2013 with a humorous video mocking the kingdom’s ban on women driving. The viral video titled “No Woman, No Drive” parodied Bob Marley’s classic song “No Woman, No Cry.”
Sabbagh hopes that more filmmakers will be inspired by his success. He told the Hollywood Reporter that he sees positive reforms and change happening within his home country at a rapid pace.
“There is this notion of change in Saudi now; we have a younger leadership, and it seems this change has been coming at faster pace than ever,” he said. “We profit from this new political climate. The kids over there are doing a great job, and we’d like our film to be a symbol of change and growing opportunities for the youth.”
Produced by El Housh Productions, "Barakah Meets Barakah" stars Sami Hifny, Abdulmajeed Alruhaidi and Khairia Nazmi in addition to Fageeh and Banawi. The film was written and directed by Sabbagh. MAD Solutions, alongside Film Clinic-Indie Film Distribution, has announced the acquisition of the Arab world distribution rights to the film through the French sales agency MPM Film.
Born in Jeddah, Sabbagh studied Documentary Filmmaking in New York. He went on to work as an independent film director and producer in Saudi Arabia. His works include "Story of Hamza Shahata" (2013) and the television series "Cash" (2014).