The Lodge
The Lodge 2024
THE LODGE 5TH EDITION, WHERE AMBITIONS ARE HONED AND YOUR FILM IS SHAPED.
Open to teams of Saudi, Arab, Asian, and African filmmakers and producers, this intensive creative and professional training program will take your project from idea to reality. Every year, it turns ambitious emerging filmmakers into a further stage.
For these filmmakers on the cusp of their big break, The Lodge in partnership with the TorinoFilmLab and is sponsored by Film AlUla, selects projects for creative and professional mentorship, development, and next-level industry opportunities. Submit your project for your chance to be part of the long-term program.
In 2024, the Lodge will expand across five workshops – the first one exclusively addressed to selected Saudi teams, and the other four to all the selected projects – to give you a broad overview and strong grounding to explore your project’s full dramatic and production potentials. You’ll be mentored by a Head of studies and a Head of Script Development, with guidance from international specialists across all segments of cinema and the industry.
Alongside ongoing script development sessions, the program features a producer coaching program and covers professional development in artistic aspects and also production, financing, sales, and marketing. During the workshop, participants will also have the opportunity to work with internationally experienced experts from the fields of directing, cinematography, editing, sound and post-production, sales, etc.
Following development and meetings with industry professionals, The Lodge Filmmakers will pitch their projects at the Red Sea Souk during the 4th Edition of the Red Sea International Film Festival 2024.
The Lodge Projects
Assa, a Fish in a Bowl
Director & Writer: Dahlia Nemlich
Producer: Marine Vaillant
In Beirut, Yasmine, an Ethiopian live-in maid, faces a crisis as her son goes missing back home. Trapped by her inextricable role and without her passport, she must find a way to escape.
Blue Card
Director: Mohammed Alomda
Producer: Amjad Abu Alala
Writer: Paula Thabet
A guilt-ridden Sudanese refugee in Egypt takes a demeaning job while awaiting resettlement, but an unexpected bond with an Egyptian street food vendor pushes him to confront his past and reshape his future.
Close Rose Close
Director & Writer: Rulan Hasan
Producer: Fahad Samman
Newlywed’s Rawan marriage begins to crumble as a dark shadow presence reemerges from her forgotten past, threatening her pursuit of a normal life and forcing her to confront long-buried secrets.
Hadd
Director: Jamal Kutbi
Writer: Mohammed Juayd
Producer: Abdulrahman Alkilany
Despite immense tribal pressure, Saeed refuses a ten-million-riyal offer to forgive his son’s killer. As a conspiracy threatens his daughter’s wedding, he makes a daring, last-minute move at the execution ground to outsmart the corrupt and reclaim his family’s honor.
I Didn’t Sign Up for This
Director & Writer: Lana Komsany
Producer: Hadeel Moharram
Nadene, a dazzling superheroine in her universe, navigates the challenges of single motherhood while confronting the heartache she thought she had long buried.
I’ll Smile in September
Director & Writer: Aakash Chhabra
Producer: Sanjay Gulati, Fran Borgia
After a heart-wrenching separation from the love of his life and a brutal altercation in the aftermath in which he loses his front teeth, a young brass band player in Old Delhi attempts to move on in his life by getting his smile back.
Jaysan
Director: Aisha Sultanbekova
Writer: Asel Imankulova Myrzabaeva
Producer: Saltanat Imankulova
Jaysan, a lively 6-year-old boy, is left with his grandparents in a village emptied by labor migration. Amid the joy of new friendships and the harsh realities of loss, his carefree childhood quietly fades away too soon.
Manjano
Director & Writer: Omar Hamza
Producer: June Wairegi
Fresh out of high school, a young man assembles a group of misfits to pull off a heist to fund his elopement with a girl promised to someone else.
Pepo Kali
Director & Writer: Lydia Matata
Producer: Debra Aroko
After a biker dies in a motorcycle accident, a grieving mother learns how to ride a motorcycle, determined to complete the trip her daughter was on when she died.
Tarfaya
Director & Writer: Sofia Alaoui
Producer: Meryem Hamdi, Margaux Lorier
In the near future, Earth undergoes climate upheavals. In the city of Tarfaya, in the south of Morocco, sandstorms are frequent. The people there have resigned themselves to this reality. Meryem is a dedicated and solitary doctor at the regional hospital where she works when she encounters mysterious and unexplained medical cases that plunge people into a deep sleep.
Terbakar
Director & Writer: Shelby Kho
Producer: Si En Tan
Catalyzed by suicides, snakes, and a local revolution, Girl confronts her fire manipulation abilities as she witnesses the tendency for non-communication and sexual and physical abuse in town just as she does at home, bringing her to an emotional height that forces her to decide how she wants to live the rest of her life.
The Silent Ones
Director & Writer: Jawahine Zentar
Producer: Emmanuelle Lattorette, Fabrice Préel-Cléach
Struggling with her six-year-old son’s scary behaviors, a mother decides to go dig into her unknown roots in Morocco with him. They follow a road that the kid mysteriously seems to know about.
