Saudi Arabia has allocated the Saudi Film Fund: $100 million to attract international investment from large studios.
The fund is 40% owned by Saudi’s Cultural Development Fund in cooperation with the MEFIC Capital bank and Roaa Media Ventures as technical partner.
The fund will include an investment for media infrastructure such as distribution and logistics services and one for both local and international production that has commercial value for the Country.
Priority is given to projects produced in Saudi Arabia, including in particular films, animation, TV series and documentaries, but international projects are not excluded.
As Variety reports, the announcement of the initiative came on the eve of the Saudi Film Confex conference (October 9th-12th) in Riyadh where 130 executive directors from various production and studio building companies were gathered by the local Film Commission.
The president of Roaa Media Ventures, Redha Alhaidar, pointed out that since the religious ban was lifted in 2018, the film industry has been able to revive.
Furthermore, Alhaidar announced that Hollywood, in response to the initiative, has already sent interesting projects that will be considered for future productions.
Photo credits: Ekrem Osmanoglu on Unsplash
