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Red Sea Fund Selects 33 Cinema Projects to Receive Funding

The Red Sea International Film Festival (RSIFF) is dedicated to developing the film industry in the region and in Saudi Arabia
The Red Sea International Film Festival (RSIFF) is dedicated to developing the film industry in the region and in Saudi Arabia
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Red Sea Fund Selects 33 Cinema Projects to Receive Funding

The Red Sea International Film Festival (RSIFF) is dedicated to developing the film industry in the region and in Saudi Arabia
The Red Sea International Film Festival (RSIFF) is dedicated to developing the film industry in the region and in Saudi Arabia

The Red Sea Fund has announced its selection of 33 promising projects from the Kingdom, the Arab region, and Africa to receive support and financial grants.

The selected projects, which are in development, are based on promising and creative ideas that cover a broad array of categories and narratives.

The projects shed light on the richness and diversity of storytelling in Saudi Arabia as well as in the wider region, including thought-provoking dramas, inspiring documentaries, and entertaining animated films.

The projects will play a role in advancing the cultural scene, enhancing communication, and increasing global understanding of Saudi Arabia, the Arab region, and Africa.

The Red Sea International Film Festival (RSIFF), which supervises the fund, is dedicated to developing the film industry in the region and in Saudi Arabia, where filmmaking keeps evolving and thriving.

The RSIFF also works to deliver diverse cinematic voices and promote dialogue between cultures to ensure the continuation of filmmaking across the region and take the success of the region’s film industry to global levels.

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Air Taxis Failed to Get Certified for the Paris Olympics

A Volocity air taxi flies during a demonstration flight at Paris Bourget Airport on June 20, 2023. (Photo by Geoffroy VAN DER HASSELT / AFP)
A Volocity air taxi flies during a demonstration flight at Paris Bourget Airport on June 20, 2023. (Photo by Geoffroy VAN DER HASSELT / AFP)
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Air Taxis Failed to Get Certified for the Paris Olympics

A Volocity air taxi flies during a demonstration flight at Paris Bourget Airport on June 20, 2023. (Photo by Geoffroy VAN DER HASSELT / AFP)
A Volocity air taxi flies during a demonstration flight at Paris Bourget Airport on June 20, 2023. (Photo by Geoffroy VAN DER HASSELT / AFP)

It was a tantalizing vision: autonomous flying taxis zipping spectators around the Paris Olympics, their electric engines humming softly over the cityscape, ushering in a new era in public transport.

Certification delays dashed that dream. But the backers of the Volocopter aircraft that was meant to ferry Olympic fans aren’t giving up. They carried out a test flight Sunday, marking the last day of the 2024 Olympics with a sunrise demonstration over the resplendent grounds of the Versailles palace, The AP reported.

The craft carried baggage, but no people, when it took off from the gardens of Versailles, from where the first hot-air balloon took flight in 1783.

The Paris region had planned for a small fleet of pilot-less air taxis for the Olympics, operated by Germany’s Volocopter and the Paris airport authority ADP.

Five Olympic routes were planned, including one landing on a platform on the Seine River -- and Volocopter CEO Dirk Hoke hoped that French President Emmanuel Macron would be his first passenger.

But ADP’s CEO Augustin de Romanet said Thursday that it had failed to win certification from Europe’s air safety agency in time for the Games.

Manufacturers of electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft — or eVTOL – remain confident that they’re a wave of the future. Companies around the world are trying to get their models authorized for flight.

Volocopter now hopes to get permission to carry passengers over Paris for the city’s next major event: the reopening of fire-ravaged Notre Dame Cathedral in December.

And rivals are aiming to make the vision of Olympic spectators hopping around venues in autonomous flying machines a reality the next Summer Games — in Los Angeles in 2028.