In-Conversation with Mona Zaki
Red Sea Film Festival is proud to have Mona Zaki as an Honoree guest.
Mona is a successful Egyptian Actress who started her career at the age of 16 with a role in “Bel Araby Elfaseh” under the well-known Actor and Director Mohamed Sobhy. She has portrayed many diversified roles throughout her career, showcasing her exceptional talent while working alongside the region’s top actors and directors in over 60 movies and series.
Through her acting career, Mona Zaki has become a quintessential star of her generation, portrayed as a role model for successful women in cinematography. Throughout her career, Mona has won multiple prestigious awards.
Known for extremely complex compositional roles, Mona Zaki's conversation will revolve around her experience with the characters she has played, her profound way of acting, her experience with directors, and her personal contribution to each role.
SHOWTIME
Sat
07.
Dec
Culture Square - Cinema 1
3:00 PM - 4:00 PM
Price: 100 SAR
Other movies
In-Conversation with Emily Blunt
Director: Emily Blunt
Academy Award nominee Emily Blunt has established herself as one of Hollywood's most versatile talents through transformative performances spanning action, drama, horror, and musicals. Her recent Academy Award nomination for Oppenheimer (2023) adds to an impressive collection of accolades, including SAG and Golden Globe awards. Blunt recently starred in The Fall Guy with Ryan Gosling and Pain Hustlers alongside Chris Evans. Her breakthrough role in The Devil Wears Prada earned BAFTA and Golden Globe nominations, while her performances in A Quiet Place and Mary Poppins Returns (2018) showcased her range, with the former earning her a SAG Award. Notable films include Sicario, The Girl on the Train, and Into the Woods. Beginning her career on London's stage opposite Dame Judi Dench, Blunt has consistently delivered acclaimed performances across genres. She is set to star in the upcoming action-adventure film The Smashing Machine.
SOMEBODY
Director: Yeo-Jung Kim
This exceptional psychological thriller from South Korea poses dark questions about the complex relationship between mothers and daughters. Swimming instructor Young-eun (Kwak Sun-young) is disturbed and embarrassed by the increasingly violent behaviour of her seven-year-old daughter So-hyun. When Young-eun realises that she cannot change her daughter's disposition she decides to take matters into her own hands with bloody results. Co-directors Kim Yeo-Jung and Lee Jung-chan show a mastery of suspense in these eerie scenes before they produce their biggest shock when the action jumps forward two decades and new characters emerge. Min (K-Pop superstar Kwon Yu-ri) and Hae-yeong (Lee Sul) are flatmates with their own devastating psychological family traumas, and dark secrets being to emerge keeping the audience guessing to the end.
In-Conversation with Viola Davis
Director: Viola Davis
Viola Davis is an acclaimed American actress and film producer celebrated for her powerful performances across screen and stage. She is one of the few artists to achieve both the Triple Crown of Acting—winning an Academy Award, Emmy, and Tony—and the prestigious EGOT. Time magazine named her one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2012 and 2017. In 2020, The New York Times ranked her ninth among the greatest actors of the 21st century. In 2017, Davis received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, presented by her Doubt co-star Meryl Streep. During her acceptance speech, Davis reflected, “God has blessed my life in abundance.” Streep wrote about Davis for Time, praising her artistic gifts as “deep and rich and true” and highlighting her cultural significance, saying Davis has “carved a place for herself on the Mount Rushmore of the 21st century.” That same year, Davis was named Harvard University’s Artist of the Year. In 2022, Davis starred in The Woman King, a historical epic about the Kingdom of Dahomey, where she portrayed Nanisca, a general of an all-female military unit. Her performance was widely acclaimed. That same year, she was cast as Dr. Volumnia Gaul in The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, a prequel to the popular film series. Earlier, Davis portrayed former First Lady Michelle Obama in the Showtime series The First Lady. Davis is also a passionate advocate against childhood hunger in the United States. Since 2014, she has worked with the Hunger Is campaign, drawing on her own experiences growing up in poverty. She has shared, “Seventeen million kids in this country, one in five, go to bed hungry. I was one of those kids.” Davis rummaged through trash and stole food as a child, an experience that fuels her activism today. Speaking at the 2014 Variety Power of Women luncheon, she emphasized the campaign’s mission to “eradicate” hunger, stating that all children deserve a chance to achieve their dreams. To support this cause, Davis launched the $30K in 30 Days Project, awarding grants to organizations like the Rhode Island Community Food Bank in her home state. Her dedication to philanthropy complements her extraordinary contributions to film and culture, solidifying her legacy as both an artist and advocate.
SABA
Director: Maksud Hossain
Saba, 25, lives in Dhaka with her demanding mother Shirin, a paraplegic whose frustrations and rage often find a target in the daughter who cares for her. When Shirin’s worsening condition requires surgery it falls to Saba to find the money to pay for it. Securing a job at a seedy Shisha bar, Saba befriends the manager Ankur and, for the first time, pictures what a life of her own could look like. Maksud Hossain’s debut feature is a close-up look at a complicated bond between mother and daughter that lurches between love and guilt, co-dependence and the longing for autonomy - but it is also a social drama, detailing the hardships that underlay the riots in Bangladesh earlier this year.
