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Red Sea Fund: Up to 500,000 Dollars to Be Offered to Every Movie

The Red Sea Fund encourages bold creative thinking. (Asharq Al-Awsat)
The Red Sea Fund encourages bold creative thinking. (Asharq Al-Awsat)
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Red Sea Fund: Up to 500,000 Dollars to Be Offered to Every Movie

The Red Sea Fund encourages bold creative thinking. (Asharq Al-Awsat)
The Red Sea Fund encourages bold creative thinking. (Asharq Al-Awsat)

The Red Sea Film Festival Foundation announced on Tuesday the launch of the phase of the Red Sea Fund, with up to $500,000 per film on offer this year. The third cycle will support projects with directors from Saudi Arabia, the Arab world and Africa, seeking to help the new generation of filmmakers, as well as older ones, see their scripts come to life on screen.

The Red Sea Fund promotes bold and original ideas that embrace a rich and diverse range of topics that inform, educate and entertain global audiences. Feature fiction, documentary, episodic or animation films can also be submitted by all applicants, while short fiction, documentary and animation film projects are only open to Saudi directors.

Now in its third year, the Red Sea Fund announced this year’s 10 recipients of post-production grants for the first time. It has a strong track record of bringing films to audiences, with 100% of last year’s funded films screened at the inaugural edition of the Festival.

The fiction features and documentaries were submitted by filmmakers from Palestine, Iraq, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Rwanda, Benin, Yemen, and Tunisia.

Among the movies selected, the Red Sea Fund supported Tunisian director Youssef Chebbi’s feature fictional “Ashkal”. The world premiere of his debut feature was selected for the 54th edition of Directors’ Fortnight, the non-competitive independent selection that is organized in parallel with the Cannes Festival that was held between May 17 to 28.

Set in the Gardens of Carthage, a district of Tunis that had been under construction by the old regime before construction stopped at the beginning of the revolution, the film follows two police officers, Fatima and Batal, who find a burnt body in a lot. As construction slowly resumes, they start looking into this mysterious case. When the event is repeated, the investigation takes an intriguing turn.

“Slave”, a movie by Mansour Assad, an Afghani Filmmaker born and raised in Saudi Arabia, was among the first local films to be selected for post-production funding.

The film was selected for its experimental techniques, pushing boundaries, and propelling a change within the creative industry in the Kingdom. Another first in this cycle of the Red Sea Fund includes a Yemini director Amr Gmal’s “The Burdened”.

Red Sea IFF CEO Mohammed Al Turki stressed that: “The Red Sea Fund has been supporting directors and producers since its inception.”

“The new and exciting wave of directors in this selection brings new perspectives to the conversation. They are presenting bold and daring stories we haven’t seen before,” he added.

“The industry is beginning to flourish and it is encouraging to see so many filmmakers eager to make their mark, our role is to nurture and support this movement,” he remarked.

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The ‘Juror #2’ Cast Still Can’t Believe They Got to Work with Clint Eastwood

(L-R) Cedric Yarbrough, Zoey Deutch, Nicholas Hoult, Toni Collette, Leslie Bibb, Gabriel Basso and Francesca Eastwood attend the closing night gala premiere of "Juror #2" during the 2024 AFI Fest at TCL Chinese Theatre on October 27, 2024 in Hollywood, California. (Getty Images/AFP)
(L-R) Cedric Yarbrough, Zoey Deutch, Nicholas Hoult, Toni Collette, Leslie Bibb, Gabriel Basso and Francesca Eastwood attend the closing night gala premiere of "Juror #2" during the 2024 AFI Fest at TCL Chinese Theatre on October 27, 2024 in Hollywood, California. (Getty Images/AFP)
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The ‘Juror #2’ Cast Still Can’t Believe They Got to Work with Clint Eastwood

(L-R) Cedric Yarbrough, Zoey Deutch, Nicholas Hoult, Toni Collette, Leslie Bibb, Gabriel Basso and Francesca Eastwood attend the closing night gala premiere of "Juror #2" during the 2024 AFI Fest at TCL Chinese Theatre on October 27, 2024 in Hollywood, California. (Getty Images/AFP)
(L-R) Cedric Yarbrough, Zoey Deutch, Nicholas Hoult, Toni Collette, Leslie Bibb, Gabriel Basso and Francesca Eastwood attend the closing night gala premiere of "Juror #2" during the 2024 AFI Fest at TCL Chinese Theatre on October 27, 2024 in Hollywood, California. (Getty Images/AFP)

Nicholas Hoult was certain someone had made a mistake.

Clint Eastwood wanted to talk to him about starring in his new film, a slow burn legal thriller about a normal guy faced with an extraordinary moral dilemma. Surely Eastwood meant someone else, he thought. But soon enough they were chatting on the phone about "Juror #2," opening in theaters Friday.

"I was so nervous," the British actor said. "I remember saying to him, ‘I really like the script.’ I was so eager to please."

For Eastwood’s comeback, Hoult slipped into a pitch-perfect impersonation of his gravelly voice: "If you like it so much, I guess I’ll have to read it."

Suddenly Hoult was laughing. The tension was broken.

"I was like, wow this guy’s cool," he said. "He’s got a great sense of humor and we’re going to get along."

Though there may be a healthy amount of English self-deprecation in the story, the spirit of it isn’t unique to Hoult. Eastwood, 94, is the kind of living legend that has even the most seasoned veterans a little starstruck. "Juror #2," his 42nd film behind the camera, is getting strong reviews for being a smart, original courtroom thriller about an impossible conundrum.

In the original script by Jonathan Abrams, Hoult’s character, a recovering alcoholic with his first child about to be born, gets selected for jury duty on a murder case. But when the facts start to emerge, so do his memories and he’s forced to confront the possibility that he might have been unknowingly responsible.

"After the first read it had me," Eastwood wrote in an email. "It made me think about what would you do if you were put in this situation? What is right? What is wrong? Who would you protect? A true moral dilemma. That’s something I’d want to watch."

And he started rounding out his cast, led by Hoult who he called a true "movie star," with supporting turns from Toni Collette as the ambitious prosecutor, Chris Messina as the public defender, J.K. Simmons as a fellow juror, as well as Zoey Deutch and Kiefer Sutherland, who wrote a letter asking if there might be a role for him.

Sutherland had long imagined he’d cross paths with Eastwood. A lifelong Western fan, Sutherland’s late father Donald Sutherland had even worked with Eastwood a few times ("Kelly’s Heroes,Space Cowboys"). But when he read about the plans for "Juror #2" he felt a new sense of urgency.

"I always thought one day I would arrive at Mr. Eastwood’s doorstep. Then I realized that that time was maybe kind of going away," said Sutherland. "I just said, ‘I’ve always dreamed of working with you and if there is a part, any part, I would just like to be able to have the experience of watching you direct."

He was ultimately cast to play a lawyer and an AA sponsor to Hoult’s character. The screentime was relatively small, but the experience was exactly what he hoped: A masterclass in the truest sense.

"I’ve worked with people that shout and get angry and they’re very demonstrative," Sutherland said. "He was so amazingly quiet and calm and soft spoken. That’s someone who has power, when they can be that and get everything they need."

On one of his first days, an assistant director was explaining to Sutherland how to navigate a doorway in a scene. Eastwood stepped in to stop the tutorial, telling the AD, "He knows what he’s doing." Despite his 40-plus years in the business, Sutherland said he walked a little taller that day.

"It made my life," Sutherland said. "I’m very glad I didn’t work with him when I was 18 years old, because I would have tied myself in knots."

Collette similarly said she’s never felt so trusted.

"He’s so confident as a director, but not in a negative way. He’s just so present and allows it all to unfold," she said. "I’ve never worked with anyone who’s so easygoing, to be honest."

The film would also be the first time she and Hoult would share the screen since they played mother and son in "About a Boy" 23 years ago, when he was only 11. They’d texted a bit prior, but Collette was not prepared for the swell of emotion seeing Hoult, now 34, again. Then came their first scene together and it wasn’t going to be an easy one: In fact, it’s the last shot of the film.

But that’s the Eastwood way. His efficiency on set is the stuff of legend. Sometimes you get two takes, but three is almost unheard of. Hoult said he and the actors on the jury even rehearsed in secret to make sure they would nail the lengthier scenes. No one wanted to be the squeaky wheel.

"He’s not efficient for the sake of being efficient," Sutherland said. "I think Sydney Pollack, for instance, was really efficient and kind of when he became known for being efficient, started trying to show off his efficiency. ... I think Mr. Eastwood just kind of looks at a set and looks at a scene and just finds the straightest way to shoot it."

Much has been made about whether "Juror #2" is going to be Eastwood’s last film. But he’s not saying that, publicly or privately. In fact, when production went on hiatus during the actors strike, he didn’t even use that time as a break.

"I remember when we did come back from the strike, I was like, ’What did you do? And he was like, ‘Well, I was looking for new material,’" Collette said. "It’s nobody’s position to say this is his last movie."

Sutherland added: "His parking spot at the Warner Bros. lot isn’t going anywhere."