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Registration of Projects for Saudi Film Festival Begins

King Abdulaziz Center for World Culture (SPA)
King Abdulaziz Center for World Culture (SPA)
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Registration of Projects for Saudi Film Festival Begins

King Abdulaziz Center for World Culture (SPA)
King Abdulaziz Center for World Culture (SPA)

The Saudi Film Festival has begun accepting projects for movies. The registration period lasts for 20 days, ending on May 15.

This year, the festival’s market differs from those that preceded it; it will be set up in the King Abdulaziz Center for World Culture’s (Ithra) Great Hall, and the 24 official bodies and regional and global production companies taking part will be granted the opportunity to put their services and programs for Saudi film-makers on display.

The production market opens on the second day of the festival and remains open for ten hours. Film-makers can negotiate with production companies and present their projects to participants directly. Awards worth 150,000 riyals are on offer this year, and they are divided as follows: 100,000 riyals for the best feature film project and 50,000 riyals for the best short film project. A number of companies also provide direct support for the projects.

Discussing the requisites for participation, the market’s director Abdul Jalil Al-Nasser said that applicants do so as producers, writers, or directors and must be Saudi nationals. Applicants can apply for several roles, the application must include a full text, even if it is a draft, the project should be for either a feature or short film.

The Saudi Film Festival is being organized by the Saudi Cinema Association in partnership with the King Abdulaziz Center for World Culture and with the support of the film committee at the Ministry of Culture. This (eighth) edition will be held at the King Abdulaziz Center for World Culture in Dharan between the second and ninth of June.

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UK Blues Legend John Mayall Dead at 90 

English blues singer John Mayall performs with his band The Bluesbreakers, on the stage of the Miles Davis hall during the 42nd Montreux Jazz Festival in Montreux, Switzerland, late Monday, July 7, 2008. (AP)
English blues singer John Mayall performs with his band The Bluesbreakers, on the stage of the Miles Davis hall during the 42nd Montreux Jazz Festival in Montreux, Switzerland, late Monday, July 7, 2008. (AP)
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UK Blues Legend John Mayall Dead at 90 

English blues singer John Mayall performs with his band The Bluesbreakers, on the stage of the Miles Davis hall during the 42nd Montreux Jazz Festival in Montreux, Switzerland, late Monday, July 7, 2008. (AP)
English blues singer John Mayall performs with his band The Bluesbreakers, on the stage of the Miles Davis hall during the 42nd Montreux Jazz Festival in Montreux, Switzerland, late Monday, July 7, 2008. (AP)

John Mayall, the British blues pioneer whose 1960s music collective the Bluesbreakers helped usher in a fertile period of rock and brought guitarists like Eric Clapton to prominence, has died at 90, his family said Tuesday.

Mayall, a singer and multi-instrumentalist who was dubbed "the godfather of British blues," and whose open-door arrangement saw some of the greats in the genre hone their craft with him and his band, "passed away peacefully in his California home" on Monday, according to a statement posted on his Facebook page.

It did not state a cause of death.

"Health issues that forced John to end his epic touring career have finally led to peace for one of this world's greatest road warriors," it said. "John Mayall gave us 90 years of tireless efforts to educate, inspire and entertain."

Mayall's influence on 1960s rock and beyond is enormous. Members of the Bluesbreakers eventually went on to join or form groups including Cream, Fleetwood Mac, the Rolling Stones and many more.

At age 30, Mayall moved to London from northern England in 1963. Sensing revolution in the air, he gave up his profession as a graphic designer to embrace a career in blues, the musical style born in Black America.

He teamed up with a series of young guitarists including Clapton, Peter Green, later of Fleetwood Mac, and Mick Taylor who helped form the Rolling Stones.

In the Bluesbreakers' debut album in 1966, "Blues Breakers With Eric Clapton," John Mayall enthralled music aficionados with a melding of soulful rock and gutsy, guitar-driven American blues featuring covers of tunes by Robert Johnson, Otis Rush and Ray Charles.

The blues music he was playing in British venues was "a novelty for white England," he told AFP in 1997.

That album was a hit, catapulting Clapton to stardom and bringing a wave of popularity to a more raw and personal blues music.

Mayall moved to California in 1968 and toured America extensively in 1972.

He recorded a number of landmark albums in the 1960s including "Crusade," "A Hard Road," and "Blues From Laurel Canyon." Dozens more followed in the 1970s and up to his latest, "The Sun Is Shining Down," in 2022.

Mayall was awarded an OBE, an Officer of the Order of the British Empire, in 2005.