JEDDAH: Audiences attending the Red Sea International Film Festival are in for a thrilling ride, as the first screening of Saudi-directed film “Junoon” will keep viewers on the edge of their seats.
Six Saudi films are participating in the festival’s New Saudi/New Cinema category, including “Junoon,” which translates as “Insanity,” by Saudi directors Maan and Yaser bin Abdulrahman.
In an interview with Arab News, the pair spoke about their first feature film, set to screen on Dec. 11 and 13 at Al-Balad Vox Cinemas.
Dubbed the “B Brothers,” they received their degrees in filmmaking, specialized in directing and producing, in the capital of filmmaking, Los Angeles.
Pre-production of “Junoon” started in March 2019, but due to the COVID-19 pandemic, filming took longer than expected and was completed last month. It was filmed between the US and Saudi Arabia while post-production took place in Egypt, including editing, visual effects and sound design.
“Filming took a full 17 days starting from July until August 2019. However, production was not easy due to the pandemic and travel bans, so we started to work online which made the process more challenging and slower, thus some work remained unfinished until we traveled back to Egypt,” said Maan.
The 90-minute horror-thriller tells a disturbing story of social media chaos, insanity and how far users will go for content and clicks.
Inspired by how social media affects mental health, Maan told Arab News that their time in Los Angeles informed much of the film.
“Yaser and I were surrounded by social media influencers in Los Angeles for a while, we were living at an apartment complex where most of them lived. We saw how crazy they would go for content and how they need to have a video to publish every two days as they have a huge audience waiting for what is coming next,” he said.
The film features a combination of Arabic and English, so an international audience will enjoy watching too. “We showcased how people from American and Middle Eastern cultures dealt with each other, and it tells a lot about how people from different backgrounds try to adapt to new cultures,” Yaser said.
According to the duo, filming was full of challenges but enjoyable as they spent two weeks filming in a jungle — mostly at night. With the crew in tow, they had to adapt to their foreign surroundings and stay positive, they said.
“Having our film displayed in such a prestigious film festival is huge because it is one of the biggest film festivals in the Middle East … not to mention that the pandemic messed that up last year. Thankfully we have it this year and we are honored to be part of it.”