عربي English Türkçe اردو فارسى
Logo
Latest News
Entertainment

Arab Cinema Mourns Death of Renowned Kuwaiti Director Khaled Al-Siddiq

Kuwaiti Film Director Khaled Al-Siddiq
Kuwaiti Film Director Khaled Al-Siddiq
TT
TT

Arab Cinema Mourns Death of Renowned Kuwaiti Director Khaled Al-Siddiq

Kuwaiti Film Director Khaled Al-Siddiq
Kuwaiti Film Director Khaled Al-Siddiq

Kuwait on Thursday announced the passing away of film director Khaled Al-Siddiq, the pioneer of the Kuwaiti cinema, and the director of the first Kuwaiti feature film Cruel Sea, which was released in 1972 and nominated for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 45th Academy Awards.

The National Council for Culture, Arts and Letters mourned “with great sadness and sorrow (...) the pioneer of the Kuwaiti cinematic movement, artist and film director Khaled Al-Siddiq, who passed away at the age of 76 after a rich career in the field of film and television art.”

Dr. Issa Al-Ansari, Assistant Secretary-General for the Culture Sector, and the official spokesman for the Council, said in a press statement on Thursday: “We are saddened by the news of the death of the great film director Khaled Al-Siddiq, the maker of pioneering cinematic and television works that left their mark in this field at the local, Arab and international levels.”

Al-Siddiq has made important cinematic achievements in the history of cinema in Kuwait. He released several critically acclaimed features throughout his career, including The Wedding of Zein in 1976, adapted from the novel by Tayeb Salih, and Shaheen in 1986, based on the novel by Italian writer Giovanni Boccaccio, a joint production between Kuwait, India and Italy.

Al-Siddiq studied in Kuwait, then moved to India, where he discovered his passion for cinema. Before completing his high school studies there, he joined a film institute in Bombay, where he received a training in photography and met with film stars and Indian and international directors.

He began his introduction to filmmaking volunteering at film studios in India. He also trained in filmmaking in Italy, the United Kingdom, and the United States. He made his first short film in 1965, called Alia and Esam. Other shorts followed, all of which he independently financed and often acted in.

After his graduation, he worked for Kuwait TV in 1963 and then moved to TV directing, relying on self-training.

Al-Siddiq received many awards and honors, especially for his movie Cruel Sea, including the first prize at the Youth Film Festival in Damascus (1972), the Honor Award at the First Tehran International Film Festival, the International Film Critics Award at the Venice Film Festival, and the second prize at the Ohio International Festival, in addition to several prizes from festivals and film forums in Chicago, Spain, Carthage and others. His movie The Wedding of Zein won seven International awards.

Most Viewed

 
 
Entertainment

‘Venom 3’ Tops Box Office Again, While Tom Hanks Film Struggles

‘Venom 3’ Tops Box Office Again, While Tom Hanks Film Struggles
TT
TT

‘Venom 3’ Tops Box Office Again, While Tom Hanks Film Struggles

‘Venom 3’ Tops Box Office Again, While Tom Hanks Film Struggles

“Venom: The Last Dance” enjoyed another weekend at the top of the box office. The Sony release starring Tom Hardy added $26.1 million in ticket sales, according to studio estimates Sunday.
It was a relatively quiet weekend for North American movie theaters leading up to the presidential election. Charts were dominated by big studio holdovers, like “Venom 3,” “The Wild Robot” and “Smile 2,” while audiences roundly rejected the Tom Hanks, Robin Wright and Robert Zemeckis reunion “Here.” Thirty years after “Forrest Gump,” “Here” opened to only $5 million from 2,647 locations.
“Venom 3” only fell 49% in its second weekend, which is a notably small drop for a superhero film, though it didn’t exactly open like one either. In two weeks, the movie has made over $90 million domestically; The first two opened to over $80 million. Globally, the picture is brighter given that it has already crossed the $300 million threshold.
Meanwhile, Universal and Illumination’s “The Wild Robot” continues to attract moviegoers even six weeks in (and when it’s available by video on demand), placing second with $7.6 million. That's up 11% from last weekend. The animated charmer has made over $121 million in North America and $269 million worldwide, The Associated Press reported.
"'The Wild Robot' has quietly been this absolute juggernaut for the fall season," said Paul Dergarabedian, the senior media analyst for Comscore. “For that film to see an increase after six weeks is astounding.”
“Smile 2” landed in third place with $6.8 million, helping to push its worldwide total to $109.7 million.
The time-hopping “Here,” a graphic novel that was adapted by “Forrest Gump” screenwriter Eric Roth, was financed by Miramax and distributed by Sony’s TriStar. With a fixed position camera, it takes audiences through the years in one living room. Critics were not on board: In aggregate it has a lousy 36% on Rotten Tomatoes.
“It was a slow weekend anyway, but it didn’t resonate in a way that many thought it might," Dergarabedian said. "There are a lot of films out there for the audience that ‘Here’ was chasing."
Despite playing in almost 1,000 more locations, “Here” came in behind Focus Features' papal thriller “Conclave,” which earned $5.3 million. Playing in 1,796 theaters, “Conclave” dropped only 20% from its debut last weekend and has made $15.2 million so far. Two Indian films also cracked the top 10 in their debuts, “Bhool Bhulaiyaa 3” and “Singham Again.”
Overall box office continues to lag behind 2023 by almost 12%. But holiday moviegoing will likely give the industry an end-of-year boost with titles like “Gladiator II” and “Wicked” on the way.
“In a couple of weeks, it’ll get a lot more competitive,” Dergarabedian said.
Jesse Eisenberg’s film “A Real Pain,” a comedic drama about cousins on a Holocaust tour in Poland, launched in four theaters this weekend in New York and Los Angeles. It made an estimated $240,000, or $60,000 per screen, which is among the top three highest per theater averages of the year. Searchlight Pictures will be expanding the well-reviewed film nationwide in the coming weeks, going wide on Nov. 15 to over 800 theaters.
Box office charts don’t always paint a full picture of the moviegoing landscape, however. This weekend several relatively high-profile films playing in theaters did not report full grosses for various reasons, including the Clint Eastwood film “Juror #2,” Steve McQueen’s WWII film “Blitz” and the Cannes darling “Emilia Pérez.” Netflix, which is handling “Emilia Pérez,” never reports box office. Apple Original Films is following suit with “Blitz,” a likely awards contender, which is in theaters before hitting Apple TV+ on Nov. 22.
“Juror No. 2” is a Warner Bros. release, and a well-reviewed one at that. The film directed by Eastwood stars Nicholas Hoult as a juror on a murder case who faces a big moral dilemma. Domestic ticket sales were withheld. The studio did say that it earned $5 million from international showings, where it played on 1,348 screens.
Even major studios withhold box office numbers occasionally. Earlier this year, Disney did not report on the Daisy Ridley movie “Young Woman and the Sea.” Results were most notably withheld during the COVID-19 pandemic.
"It’s really up to the distributors," Dergarabedian said. “Often times the reason that certain movies may not be reported is that there’s a chance that the quality of the movie will be conflated with the box office number.”