ANTI-CINEMA

Saudi Arabia I 2025 I Arabic dialogue with English subtitles l 118 min

ABOUT FILM

Saudi filmmaker Ali Saeed presents his bold and intellectual feature-length documentary Anti-Cinema, exploring the history of Saudi cinema from an unconventional perspective. The film is guided by a central question: How can one speak of a cinema that emerged in its absence? And how was a complex relationship formed between society, the image, memory, and censorship?

The film had its world premiere at the 46th Cairo International Film Festival (November 2025), competing in the Arab Horizons section. It was awarded the Special Jury Prize – Salah Abu Seif Award, a high critical recognition of its artistic value and historical significance.

Anti-Cinema traces the memory of the 1980s generation in Saudi Arabia, a generation that grew up without cinemas but developed a personal relationship with film through video tapes, secret clubs, and imagination. Through this memory, the film deconstructs what it calls the “historical contradiction” between society and cinema, and reinterprets censorship not as a void, but as a cultural condition that shaped awareness, taste, and desire for images.

The film’s distinctive approach is contemplative and non-prescriptive; it does not present an official history nor attempt to construct a complete narrative. Instead, it opens a space for reflection on what cinema means in its absence and the impact of that absence on entire generations of audiences and creators. The documentary intertwines interviews, archival material, and visual experiments in an unconventional structure, making the film itself an act of questioning cinema.

Visually, Anti-Cinema employs a deliberate experimental style, breaking illusion and playing with repetition and deconstruction. Sound and music become essential elements in building the atmosphere, a feature reflected in the film’s nominations at the festival: Best Arab Film, Best Feature-Length Documentary, and Best Music.

At its screening at the Malmö Arab Film Festival, Anti-Cinema offers a provocative and thought-provoking documentary experience, aimed at audiences interested in cinema as memory, practice, and an open question. The film demonstrates the ability of Arab documentary cinema to reinterpret its history, not with nostalgia, but with critical awareness and insight.