Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea Film Festival opens on Thursday with the Middle East premiere of Rowan Athale’s boxing biopic “Giant,” starring Egyptian-British actor Amir El Masry as iconic British-Yemeni featherweight “Prince” Naseem Hamed and Pierce Brosnan as his trainer, just as Saudi’s nascent film and TV industry is busy bulking up.

The choice of “Giant” as out-of-competition opener for the ambitious event held in Jeddah, on the Red Sea’s eastern shore – which is now firmly on the map as a prominent film market in the Arab region – underlines the fest’s “East meets West” mission, said Red Sea Foundation CEO Faisal Baltyuor, who is a Saudi Arabian film industry pioneer. Besides the festival, the foundation oversees its Red Sea Souk market, the Red Sea Fund, and year-round labs.

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