why pop culture matters

The first feature film—ever—is coming to Saudi Arabia.

It is time for Sahar to marry, but she dreams of a career, not a husband. Her fundamentalist brother wants to pick her mate and is already planning her life as a homemaker.

In “Keif al Hal” (”How’s It Going?”), a big-budget Arab film due out this summer, family members find themselves torn between modernity and tradition.

The plot may seem mundane but in important ways, “Keif al Hal” is a landmark project with big ambitions. It is the first feature film from Saudi Arabia, a country with not a single legal movie theater.

The movie, financed by a Saudi prince, aims not only to raise delicate questions about social oppression but also to generate a Saudi movie industry and force the opening of theaters, some of which are reportedly under construction without licenses or legal status.

“Keif al Hal” follows the release of several short films and documentaries by Saudi filmmakers over the past two years that do not shy away from controversial themes. “Thalal al Sampt” (”The Oppression of Silence”), by Abdullah al-Moheissin, is an art house science-fiction film about government oppression, while “Cinema 500 km” chronicles one man’s drive to Bahrain to watch a movie, a statement about Saudi Arabia’s narrow personal freedoms.

But “Keif al Hal,” produced by Rotana, one of the Middle East’s fastest growing media companies, which is owned by the Saudi billionaire Prince Walid bin Talal, takes things several steps further, with a relatively big-budget, mainstream film that aims to provoke questions.

“I am correcting a big mistake, that is all,” said Prince Walid, sitting in his office high above Riyadh. “I want to tell Arab youth: You deserve to be entertained, you have the right to watch movies, you have the right to listen to music.” [emphasis added]

The AP also offers this backgrounder on the sorry history of the movies in the Saudi kingdom, and what’s at stake.

Now, let’s take a stroll down memory lane to late last week, when Osama bin Laden issued his latest talking points:

6. Saudis: We criticize the Saudi Monarch for refuting the idea of Clash of civilization. There is a clash led by the West against Islam.

7. Arab Liberals: Jihadists must silence the Arab and Muslim liberals. (A list has been established, but it wasn’t aired).

8. Education: We warn from any change that would affect the educational curriculum in the Arab and Muslim world.

9. Arab TV: We warn against those TV stations airing into the region and propagating Crusader propaganda.

Bin Laden is afraid of precisely the kind of ideas that Prince Walid is trying to introduce. Hmmm.