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SOUK PROJECT MARKET

Discover fresh voices, forge partnerships, and get a first look at the next big stories in cinema.

The Red Sea Souk Project Market 2025 will feature a selection of 40 projects including 24 feature films in development or production and 8 Works-in-Progress. The selection also will present 8 episodic projects which are being developed through the Red Sea SeriesLab, in partnership with Film Independent.

Taking place from December 6–10, the Project Market is designed to bolster international co-productions and grant access to new projects and talent. The call for projects will be opened to include projects by directors from across the Arab World, Africa, and Asia.

12 of the feature projects in development are taking part in the 2025 Red Sea Lodge program and are currently advancing through intensive workshops in collaboration with TorinoFilmLab. Projects will compete for cash awards, provided by the Red Sea Fund and awarded by the Souk Project Market juries.

Participating projects are also eligible for additional awards provided by the Red Sea Souk award partners.

All of this and more is exclusively enjoyed by Souk Pro badge holders.

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Please read the rules and regulations before applying.

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For more information, please reach out to souk@redseafilmfest.com.

Project Market Juries
Red Sea Souk Awards
Souk Schedule
Book of Projects 2025
Rules and Regulations for Projects in Development or Production
Rules and Regulations for Works-in-Progress

Projects-in-Development & Production

A NOBLE DEPARTURE

Director: Dahlia Baeshen
Producer: Rasha AlEmam
Saudi Arabia

When a respected ex-diplomat dies abroad under scandalous circumstances, his family rushes to preserve his legacy. Over three days of his funeral in Jeddah, the carefully curated facade begins to crumble, revealing secrets that shock both the women of the house and unexpected guests.

A TIME TO WANDER

Director: Rim Nakhli
Producer: Habib Mestiri
Tunisia
Developed with Red Sea Labs

Eighteen-year-old Chadia wanders lost through the city, searching for her vanished brother. Her emotional instability and fateful encounters intensify her absolute quest for self-discovery.

ABOUT LOVE & SEPTEMBER LAWS

Director: Mohamed Kordofani
Producers: Khalid Awad, Mohamed Kordofani
Sudan, France, Germany, Sweden

In 1983 Sudan, as Sharia Law is enforced, a doctor, a translator, and an African-American journalist become entangled in love and resistance amid a nation’s political upheaval.

COLD ASHES CAN CAUSE FOREST FIRES

Director: Ashmita Guha Neogi
Producer: Avantika Singh Desbouvries
France, India

At an off-season hotel in the Himalayas during winter, Uma lives alone with her father. When family friends come to visit, Uma suspects a disturbing intimacy between her father and his friend’s wife. Her silent rage at this whispered betrayal ends up exposing everyone’s wounds…

COUMBA

Director: Mamadou Dia
Producer: Eugenie Michel Villette
Senegal, France

A police inspector returns to his hometown to investigate a murder linked to a mysterious spirit. As the Wolf Moon rises, he faces the town’s fears, hidden rituals, and a past that refuses to stay buried.

DHEL

Director: Dania Altayeb
Saudi Arabia
Developed with Red Sea Labs

When a young Saudi artist haunted by her father’s legacy joins an isolated art residency in AlUla, she discovers a cursed paintbrush that awakens a ghostly muse, forcing her to confront the darkness she’s inherited before it consumes her completely.

DIAPHANOUS

Director: Dornaz Hajiha
Producers: Lya Li, Isabelle Glachant
Iran, Hong Kong, France, Norway, Mexico

Diaphanous. She is not what she thinks she is. She is what she hides.

FICTION

Director: Anocha Suwichakornpong
Producer: Mai Meksawan
Thailand

In an imagined Thai courtroom, survivors of 2010 military crackdown present their testimonies, staging the trial they were never granted in real life.

GREEN CORPSE

Director: Khaled Zidan
Producer: Bakr Alduhaim
Saudi Arabia
Developed with Red Sea Labs

Malek, a teenage sprinter chasing a championship, is pulled back by his father, who smuggles a prohibited plant in a mortuary van. Between a father’s love and the threat of stigma, Malek fights not to inherit his family’s sins.

HOLIDAY

Director: Wissam Charaf
Producers: Katia Khazak, Charlotte Vincent
France, Lebanon, Italy

1986. Chadi and his family flee Beirut from bombings. During this forced holiday in a safe haven, the teenager will face war and love in unusual ways.

INFIDELS

Director: Eli Jean Tahchi
Producers: Yanick Letourneau, Pierre Villepelet
Lebanon, Canada

In a near-future, Omar, a young Arab migrant, is forced into a pilot immigration program: revive a dying village in 30 days, or disappear.

LEG

Director: Shokir Kholikov
Producer: Aigerim Satybaldy
Kazakhstan, Italy

Superstitious and terrified of death, Ulmas is determined to preserve his amputated leg, refusing to follow the Uzbek tradition of burying it with his future remains.

NKANAI

Director: Bruno Tanya
Producer: Audrey Tanya
Kenya
Developed with Red Sea Labs

After a devastating injury leaves her paralyzed, Samburu’s first female warrior rejects exile. With only a haunted tracker by her side, she braves northern Kenya’s ruthless bandits, betrayal, and unforgiving terrain to reclaim her dignity and home.

PHILAX

Director: Ruken Tekes
Producers: Ruken Tekes, Yorgos Tsourgiannis
Turkey, Italy, Greece

On a remote island, a donkey named Philax moves from owner to owner, tracing four seasons of resistance, feasts, fear, and hope.

PLAYHOUSE

Director: Maha Haj
Producer: Thanassis Karathanos
Palestine, Germany, France, Cyprus

A young Palestinian hides in his ancestral home in Jaffa, determined to reclaim a legacy erased by exile and loss.

POSITIVE

Director: Hanaa Saleh Alfassi
Producer: Sue-Ellen Chitunya
Saudi Arabia
Developed with Red Sea Labs

When a routine blood test reveals that he’s HIV positive, a Saudi man and his fiancée embark on a search for a cure, only to discover that true healing means something else.

PRICE OF EVIL

Director: Ibrahim Mursal
Producer: Jonas Bruun
Sudan, Norway
Developed with Red Sea Labs

When his grandfather is murdered in Sudan, Norwegian-Sudanese Ahmed must decide the killer’s punishment according to Sudanese law: prison, forgiveness or the death penalty. We follow him as he faces an impossible decision with enormous consequences for himself and his family.

SALMA AND THE MOON AND THE STARS

Director: Maram Taibah
Producer: Farah Jouni
Saudi Arabia
Developed with Red Sea Labs

Jealous of her perfect older sister, an 11-year-old girl makes a reckless wish for a fairytale villain to take her sister away, only to watch it come true. Now, she must journey through a realm of jinn and magic to rescue her sister, undo her mistake, and discover the power of her own imagination.

SPACEMAN IN KONGO

Director: Maisha Maene
Producers: Leo Nelki, Josune Hahnheiser
Democratic Republic of the Congo, United Kingdom, Germany

Two young rocket engineers, propelled by the memory of African dreamers and a resilient belief in their homeland, work on building the first Congolese space program.

STREET EDUCATION

Director: Yaser B.
Producer: Amal Alsenan
Saudi Arabia
Developed with Red Sea Labs

Riyadh, 2018. When her sister gets blackmailed, Amal decides she’ll fix it herself. Her only lead: Rakan, a street kid who mostly wants her Snapchat. He agrees to help, they cook up a trap for the blackmailer… and obviously everything goes wrong

THE DAUGHTER

Director: Tian Guan
Producer: Vivian Bao
Hong Kong, Taiwan, France
Developed with Red Sea Labs

In a population crisis, a teenage village girl is forced into pregnancy, only to discover the fetus inside her is a vengeful spirit, longing to be reborn through her body—yet, they share an intimate and inexplicable bond.

TO CATCH A FALLING SKY

Director: Cheta Chukwu
Producer: Sheila Nortley
Nigeria, United Kingdom
Developed with Red Sea Labs

In 1966 Nigeria, as civil war erupts, a brilliant but childless woman must confront her husband’s devastating choice to bring home a second wife, forcing her to choose between resentment and an unthinkable alliance as their country collapses around them.

UNHOLY

Director: Mohammad Reza Fahriyansyah
Producers: Amerta Kusuma, Yulia Evina Bhara
Indonesia
Developed with Red Sea Labs

In a secluded Islamic boarding school, Fahri’s camera lingers on his best friend’s sleeping face. When his secret is exposed, he finds solace in a teacher’s gentle attention – until tenderness turns uneasy, and innocence folds into something harder to name.

VEIL WHISPERS

Director:  Iris Lanhua Ma
Producer: Aihui Dong
China
Developed with Red Sea Labs

Reimagining the Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, a Chinese mother descends to the underworld to rescue her son after he committed suicide—only to find her quest is a reckoning with generational control and the forgiveness she must earn.

Red Sea Souk Works-in-Progress

A GIRL UNKOWN

Director: Jing Zou
Producers: Yang Wang, Didar Domehri, Xi Cao
China, France

A Girl Unknown follows the tumultuous journey of a young Chinese girl who has three names as she navigates the complexities of her past, present, and future amidst a tapestry of three distinct family dynamics.

A MOON FOR EVERY RIVER

Director: You Gu
Producers: Zuolong Shan, Kexin Du
China, France

A story of three women bidding farewell to one man.

BENIMANA

Director: Marie-Clémentine Dusabejambo
Producers: Samantha Biffot, Marie-Clémentine Dusabejambo
Rwanda, Gabon, Côte d’Ivoire, France, Norway

 Veneranda, a survivor of the Tutsi genocide working for reconciliation, must face her old demons when her daughter unexpectedly gets pregnant. 

LA PYRAMIDE

Director: Cj 'Fiery' Obasi
Producers: Abbas Nokhasteh, Andres Borda
Nigeria, United Kingdom, United States of America, Senegal, Brazil

Souls across three continents must confront the darkness that guards the light they seek.

RIA

Director: Arvin Belarmino
Producer: Kristine Joy De Leon
Philippines, Norway, Singapore, Saudi Arabia, Japan

With a demolition threat by an unscrupulous developer, the young folk-punk Ria joins her foster mom and their punk gang to defend their home, the sole surviving building standing in the ruins of their neighborhood.

THE LAST DAYS OF RM

Director: Amin Sidi-Boumédiène
Producers: Louise Bellicaud, Claire Charles-Gervais
France, Algeria, Saudi Arabia, Qatar

Exiled from Algeria after death threats, a haunted writer battles guilt and loneliness in a bleak French suburb, where reality and fiction collide as he confronts his inner demons and searches for redemption through the only weapon he has left — words.

THE PRODIGAL SON

Director: Rani Massalha
Producer: Habib Attia
Tunisia, France, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Belgium, Qatar

Salem, 25, is a pig farmer in Cairo. Swine flu virus appears abroad, psychosis takes hold of Cairo and puts Salem and his community to the test.

YESTERDAY THE EYE DID’NT SLEEP

Director: Rakan Mayasi
Producer: Jennifer Ritter
Belgium, Palestine, Lebanon 

In a Bedouin village in the Bekaa Valley, everyone is looking for Gamra. She is accused of burning the vehicle of the man she loved when he married someone else. Will this burning flame spread out to the entire village?

SeriesLab Projects

DÉRIFT

Writer: Zahra Zuhair
Producer: Mawadda Sallam
Saudi Arabia

When Lujain, a Saudi cyber forensic detective, takes on a high stakes cyberattack case, she confronts a moral dilemma after discovering the attackers are themselves victims of injustice.

FLASH

Writer: Sooyoung Kim
Producer: Donghwan Kim
South Korea

A forensic-fueled homicide detective joins forces with a partner with shamanic heritage to investigate a series of school “suicides” — where proof isn’t enough, and the supernatural might hold the clues.

FLYWEIGHTS

Writer: Eldar Shibanov
Co-Writer: Yuliya Levitskaya
Kazakhstan

Raised by a paralyzed ex-gangster, a 19-year-old pole-dancing street fighter trades drugs for boxing — punching her way toward Olympic gold and the mother who left her.

MAD BOUNTY AND THE MIDNIGHT GUN

Writer: Talemwa Pius
Co-Writer: Tusabe Ivan
Uganda

In 1885, Western Uganda, outlaw Mad Bounty hunts the British commander who killed his mother only to uncover the Midnight Gun, a native weapon of raw power. To claim it, he must outwit the British and rival factions.

MONEY TOWN

Writer: Tony Koros
Producer: Toni Kamau
Kenya

When a tech millionaire showers free money on a humble Kenyan village once held together by cups of borrowed sugar, all hell breaks loose, and only shrewd but illiterate Lel can keep the madness from boiling over. 

SIDE EFFECTS

Writer: Hind Metwalli
Co-Writer: Ahmed ElZogbhy
Producer: Ahmed Dessouki
Egypt

When brilliant but disgraced neurosurgeon Nadia returns to Cairo to sell her late father’s hospital, she finds the once-respected community institution on the brink of collapse, and her sister Samya accused of killing a young patient. With the hospital’s future and their own freedom on the line, the estranged sisters must stop fighting long enough to save the place that has saved so many others, before it’s too late.

SOCIETY

Writer: Sushant Nagpal
Co-Writer: Mayank Shandilya
India

At Delhi University’s fiercest theatre society, two estranged brothers clash over ideology while struggling under the shadow of their martyred artist-activist father. As real-world unrest seeps onto campus life, they must decide whether performance is the only way they can contribute to a revolution.

TILL DEATH DO US PART

Writer: Tomi Folowosele
Producer: Orire Nwani
Nigeria

A grieving woman defies an ancient rule to see her dead husband one last time, tearing open the veil between life and death and awakening something on the other side that has come to collect what is owed.

Previous Project Market Selections:

Book of Projects 2024

Book of Projects 2023

Book of Projects 2022

Book of Projects 2021

الشروط والأحكام المتعلقة بتذاكر أفلام المهرجان

• التذاكر غير قابلة للاستبدال أو الاسترجاع، ولا يجوز إعادة بيعها.
• يُضمن حجز المقعد حتى 15 دقيقة قبل موعد بدء العرض أو الندوة.
• يُسمح بدخول المتأخرين وفق تقدير إدارة القاعة.
• يرجى العلم أن البرامج والجداول والمواقع قابلة للتغيير.
• قد يُطلب إظهار ما يثبت العمر في الأفلام المقيّدة بفئة عمرية محددة.
• يُمنع منعًا باتًا استخدام أجهزة التسجيل أو التصوير في جميع العروض والندوات.
• يمكن لحاملي الشارات إلغاء حجز التذاكر حتى 60 دقيقة قبل موعد العرض عبر التطبيق أو الموقع الإلكتروني أو من خلال شبّاك التذاكر.
• التذاكر غير المُلغاة وغير المستخدمة تُحتسب تحت حكم عدم الحضور .

للاستفسارات والاقتراحات، الرجاء التواصل معنا على البريد التالي:
customerservice@redseafilmfest.com

أو الاتّصال على الرقم التالي:
920051177

تنويه بشأن التصوير والتسجيل

تخضع جميع مواقع مهرجان البحر الأحمر السينمائي الدولي للتصوير الفوتوغرافي وتصوير الفيديو والتسجيلات الصوتية، ويُمكن عرض كل وأيّ مادة على وسائل التواصل الاجتماعي بغرض الإعلان والتسويق. لذلك ننوّه بأنكم وبمجرد دخولكم لِمواقع المهرجان، فأنتم توافقون على الظهور في جميع هذه المواد الإعلامية دون تعويض. 

RedSeaIFF Ticket Terms 

• Tickets are non-exchangeable, non-refundable, and cannot be resold.
• Seating is guaranteed up to 15 minutes before the start of the screening and panel.
• Late arrivals are seated at the Theatre Manager’s discretion.
• Programs, schedules, and venues are subject to change.
• Proof of age may be required for age-restricted films.
• Recording devices are strictly prohibited in all screenings and panels • Badge holders may release tickets up to 60 minutes before the screening via the app, website, or Box Office. Unreleased and unused tickets will count toward the No Show Policy.

For assistance, contact 920051177, customerservice@redseafilmfest.com, or reach us via the RedSeaIFF Mobile App.

 

Photography and Recording Notice

By entering any RedSeaIFF venue, guests acknowledge that photography, video, and audio recording may be taking place. All recorded material may be used by the Festival for social media, advertising, and marketing purposes. Attendance at the Festival constitutes consent to appear in such material and authorizes its use without compensation.

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