عربي English Türkçe اردو فارسى
Logo
Latest News
Varieties

Asseri Appointed as Interim CEO of Red Sea Film Foundation

Interim CEO of the Red Sea Film Foundation Mohammed Asseri
Interim CEO of the Red Sea Film Foundation Mohammed Asseri
TT
TT

Asseri Appointed as Interim CEO of Red Sea Film Foundation

Interim CEO of the Red Sea Film Foundation Mohammed Asseri
Interim CEO of the Red Sea Film Foundation Mohammed Asseri

Mohammed Al-Turki has stepped down from his role as CEO of the Red Sea Film Foundation and will transition to an advisor to the Foundation.

He will continue to support the leadership team while refocusing on his personal projects and career as an independent film producer and businessman.

In the interim, Mohammed Asseri, a former board member of the Red Sea Film Foundation, will step in as acting CEO as the search for Al-Turki’s successor is underway.

The announcement comes on the heels of a landmark Cannes Film Festival for the Foundation, which saw four titles supported by the organization selected for the festival. Among these was Tawfik Alzaidi’s “Norah,” which had its world premiere at the 2023 Red Sea International Film Festival.

“Norah” made history as the first Saudi film chosen for the festival’s Official Selection, receiving a Special Mention in the prestigious Un Certain Regard section.

Other notable projects included at Cannes were Mahdi Fleifel’s “To a Land Unknown” (Director’s Fortnight), Emma Benestan’s “Animale” (Cannes Critics Week), and Nada Riyadh and Ayman El Amir’s “The Brink of Dreams” (Cannes Critics Week), which won the L’Œil d’or (Golden Eye Award) for Best Documentary at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival.

Jomana Alrashid, Chairwoman of the Red Sea Film Foundation, reflected on this transition: “As we move forward, we acknowledge the relentless efforts of our team and express our gratitude to Mohammed Al-Turki for his pivotal role in leading the Foundation.”

“We look forward to his continued success as one of Saudi Arabia’s most prominent film executives and welcome new leadership to the Foundation, alongside our Managing Director Shivani Pandya Malhotra,” she added.

Al-Turki added: “Working with the Foundation through these three editions of the festival and establishing Saudi Arabia’s place on the global film industry stage has been an honor.”

“We have achieved so much, and as we approach our fourth edition, I feel it is the perfect time to transition. I am grateful for the bonds we have built and will continue to support my Red Sea Film Foundation family,” he noted.

The fourth edition of the Red Sea International Film Festival will take place in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, from December 5 to 14.

Most Viewed

 
 
Varieties

Muddy Footprints Suggest 2 Species of Early Humans Were Neighbors in Kenya 1.5 Million Years Ago

An aerial view shows a research team standing alongside the fossil footprint trackway at the excavation site on the eastern side of Lake Turkana in northern Kenya in 2022. AP
An aerial view shows a research team standing alongside the fossil footprint trackway at the excavation site on the eastern side of Lake Turkana in northern Kenya in 2022. AP
TT
TT

Muddy Footprints Suggest 2 Species of Early Humans Were Neighbors in Kenya 1.5 Million Years Ago

An aerial view shows a research team standing alongside the fossil footprint trackway at the excavation site on the eastern side of Lake Turkana in northern Kenya in 2022. AP
An aerial view shows a research team standing alongside the fossil footprint trackway at the excavation site on the eastern side of Lake Turkana in northern Kenya in 2022. AP

Muddy footprints left on a Kenyan lakeside suggest two of our early human ancestors were nearby neighbors some 1.5 million years ago.
The footprints were left in the mud by two different species “within a matter of hours, or at most days,” said paleontologist Louise Leakey, co-author of the research published Thursday in the journal Science.
Scientists previously knew from fossil remains that these two extinct branches of the human evolutionary tree – called Homo erectus and Paranthropus boisei – lived about the same time in the Turkana Basin.
But dating fossils is not exact. “It’s plus or minus a few thousand years,” said paleontologist William Harcourt-Smith of Lehman College and the American Museum of Natural History in New York, who was not involved in the study.
Yet with fossil footprints, “there’s an actual moment in time preserved,” he said. “It’s an amazing discovery.”
The tracks of fossil footprints were uncovered in 2021 in what is today Koobi Fora, Kenya, said Leaky, who is based at New York's Stony Brook University.
Whether the two individuals passed by the eastern side of Lake Turkana at the same time – or a day or two apart – they likely knew of each other’s existence, said study co-author Kevin Hatala, a paleoanthropologist at Chatham University in Pittsburgh.
“They probably saw each other, probably knew each other was there and probably influenced each other in some way,” The Associated Press quoted him as saying.
Scientists were able to distinguish between the two species because of the shape of the footprints, which holds clues to the anatomy of the foot and how it’s being used.
H. erectus appeared to be walking similar to how modern humans walk – striking the ground heel first, then rolling weight over the ball of the foot and toes and pushing off again.
The other species, which was also walking upright, was moving “in a different way from anything else we’ve seen before, anywhere else,” said co-author Erin Marie Williams-Hatala, a human evolutionary anatomist at Chatham.
Among other details, the footprints suggest more mobility in their big toe, compared to H. erectus or modern humans, said Hatala.
Our common primate ancestors probably had hands and feet adapted for grasping branches, but over time the feet of human ancestors evolved to enable walking upright, researchers say.
The new study adds to a growing body of research that implies this transformation to bipedalism – walking on two feet — didn’t happen at a single moment, in a single way.
Rather, there may have been a variety of ways that early humans learned to walk, run, stumble and slide on prehistoric muddy slopes.
“It turns out, there are different gait mechanics – different ways of being bipedal,” said Harcourt-Smith.