Prominent Egyptian Indie Film Clinic Branches Out Into Saudi Arabia With Ryadh Outpost and Rich Slate (EXCLUSIVE)

variety.com:

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Prominent Egyptian producer Mohamed Hefzy is branching out into Saudi Arabia by setting up an outpost of his prolific Film Clinic shingle – which has six titles at Saudi’s Red Sea Film Festival – in the Saudi capital of Riyadh.

The milestone move comes after Hefzy has been busy forging rapports with Saudi’s film community on a number of projects including Egyptian director Abu Bakr Shawky’s high-end Saudi-set adventure movie “Hajjan” – which had its regional premiere at Red Sea last year after launching from Toronto. “Hajjan” was produced by Film Clinic in tandem with the King Abdulaziz Center for World Culture, known as Ithra. “This is something that’s been in the cards for a couple of years,” Hefzy told Variety.

He added that though Film Clinic’s Saudi base will be in Riyadh, the idea is to be active throughout the entire kingdom. “We’re talking about Riyadh.

We’re talking about Jeddah. We’re talking about AlUla. We’re talking about any place where we could shoot films in the kingdom and work with local filmmakers,” he said. “Because for us, we don’t want to be the outsiders that come in importing talents, importing directors, writers, and actors.