JEDDAH, Saudi Arabia. Arab women filmmakers have helped change the landscape of Arab cinema in recent years, presenting previously untold stories and claiming a place in the industry in a region where women rarely have room to grow.
Four influential female directors took part in this year's Red Sea Film Festival in Jeddah, paving the way for more diverse storytelling in Arab cinema.
The festival, which features 38 directors, showcases Saudi Arabia's significant investment in film. games and sport as part of it broader transformation efforts. Some human rights groups have criticized the moves, saying they serve to distract attention from the kingdom's human rights record, including its human rights record. high execution speed and restrictions on freedom of expression.
Palestinian-American filmmaker Sherien Dabis premiered her new film All That Remains of You, a story tracing one family's experiences from the 1948 Nakba, Arabic for disaster, the mass expulsion of Palestinians before and during the Arab-Israeli War that followed the creation of Israel, to 2022. The film touches on themes of Palestinian displacement and personal loss.
“It tells the story of one family over three generations and how they survived the Nakba in 1948 and the ongoing occupation,” she said. “It gives people an idea of how we got to where we are today and shows what the Palestinians have had to endure over the decades.”
Dabis, who was born and raised in the United States to Palestinian-Jordanian parents, said her passion and inspiration to become a director came from the lack of authentic Arab and Palestinian representation in Western media. “I realized that I wanted to get into storytelling, to tell our authentic stories, because I couldn’t find us anywhere,” she said.
She said growing up in the U.S. offered better opportunities for a film career than in the Arab world, but the racism her family faced strengthened her desire to challenge harmful stereotypes. “My experience in the diaspora really motivated me to become a storyteller,” she said.
And she still fought to be taken seriously, feeling pressure to adopt a more authoritative, even masculine tone to counter assumptions about female directors. “There is a perception of female filmmakers as being overly emotional or unable to command a set,” she said. “Many of us felt like we needed to overcome these unjust ideas.”
Her film “All That's Left of You” won the Silver Yusr Award for Feature Film at the Red Sea Film Festival with a prize of $30,000.
Saudi film director Shahad Amin emerged as one of the prominent voices at this year's festival. Her latest film Hijra won the Yusr Jury Prize, marking another milestone in her career.
“Hijra” tells the story of three women – a grandmother and her two granddaughters – who travel from Taif to Mecca to perform the Hajj, the Islamic pilgrimage. When one of the granddaughters suddenly disappears in the desert, the film follows the search for her in southern Saudi Arabia.
Amin traces his passion for filmmaking back to his childhood, inspired by the historical television dramas that once dominated Arab screens. “I felt that we Arabs needed to have our voices heard ourselves, and not have someone else speak on our behalf,” she said.
Amin said the changes taking place in Saudi Arabia and the growth of the Red Sea Film Festival directly influenced her path into filmmaking. “Ten years ago we couldn’t have dreamed of this,” she said, calling the festival a turning point for the kingdom’s cinema.
Filmmaking remains an uncertain path for Arab women, requiring constant persistence with no guarantee of success, she said. “Every film is a new beginning,” she said, noting that directors must repeatedly convince investors, festivals and audiences of their vision.
Amira Diab's path into filmmaking was not a traditional one. A former financial investment professional living in Manhattan, she found her calling after watching “Omar,” the Oscar-nominated film by Palestinian director Hani Abu-Assad, who later became her husband. This film and their connection drew her into the world of cinema.
Diab continued to study filmmaking in Los Angeles, working as a producer with Abu-Assad. She has directed two short films and collaborated with her husband on a TV series. One of her breakthrough moments was the short film “Like a Husband,” part of the Netflix anthology “Love, Life and Everything in Between.”
The film resonated deeply with audiences as it captured the emotional ambivalence of life in the Palestinian territories. “People told me they saw so much of themselves in it. That's life in Palestine – joy turns to mourning and then back to joy again. But there's always a glimmer of hope,” she said.
Diab's feature film The Wedding Rehearsal began as a story based in the Palestinian territories but then expanded to Egypt, a decision that she believes expanded the story's cultural reach. “Egypt has such a rich and diverse social structure,” she said. “And I worked with such wonderful people as Nelly Karim and Sherif Salama. Egypt has been very accepting of me.”
Even though she has experience in Hollywood, Diab remains committed to telling Arab stories through women's voices. “Of course, women see the world differently. That's why our voices matter,” she explained. “But that doesn’t mean men can’t write about women—it just means there are certain emotional details that only women can fully bring to the screen.”
Zane Duraiye said her love for filmmaking began when she was 10 years old watching Titanic with her father in Amman, Jordan. She was captivated not by the love story, but by how the ship sank and how the film was made. That spark turned into a passion, nurtured through school theater and then refined at Toronto Film School.
At the Red Sea International Film Festival, Zain premiered her first feature film, Conch, about a mother struggling with her mentally ill son, a theme often overlooked in Arab cinema.
Durai started her career from the bottom, playing every possible role from assistant producer, assistant director to producer, before directing her own films. “I was carrying heavy equipment into the mountains,” she recalled. “People told me, ‘This is not a woman’s job,’ but that just pushed her further. “I worked in everything related to filmmaking. I wanted to learn it all.”
Durai is known for tackling deep personal and social issues, particularly in the areas of mental health and the women's experience. “I love working in the psychology of drama and want to tell stories about women but also break stereotypes,” she said. She said Arab cinema has not yet reached that level when it comes to gender inclusion.
