Saudi Arabia to launch soft money fund for international filmmakers

Saudi Arabia is set to introduce soft money schemes totalling $234m to local and international companies, in a bid to launch a homegrown film and TV industry over the next three years.

The Saudi Cultural Fund revealed its Film Sector Financing Programme at an event in Riyadh last week titled Ignite the Scene, which is dedicated to the film industry.

In an interview with Variety, the cultural development fund’s chief strategy and business development officer Najla AlNomair said that the Saudi soft money pot is “split into two parts: one allocated for loans that amounts to $154 million, and the other for investments, amounting to $80m.“

The loans component of the new Saudi incentives is being provided by two key financial partners: Saudi banks Lendo and Sukuk Capital.

The loans “can be for a production project, but also for a company that provides services to the production [such as companies that provide film props] and also for marketing and distribution services as well as for infrastructure,” said AlNomair. She specified that by “infrastructure” she meant film studios, and not the burgeoning exhibition sector.