Saudi rom-com Barakah Meets Barakah a surprise hit at Berlin Film Festival

It just doesn’t sound as if it can be right – a romantic comedy made in Saudi Arabia by Saudi filmmakers.

After all, the country has only one cinema – an Imax that shows science documentaries – and only one film has previously been made in the kingdom, the Bafta-nominated Wadjda in 2012.

Yet despite all the seemingly insurmountable hurdles, Barakah Meets Barakah was not only produced, it screened to riotous laughter at the Berlin Film Festival last week.

The film’s director is Mahmoud Sabbagh. Born in 1983 in Jeddah, he has a master’s degree in documentary film making from the Columbia School of Journalism in New York. Barakah Meets Barakah is his first film, but before that he made a 10-part web series, also filmed in Saudi Arabia.

“I wanted to make a film about public space,” says Sabbagh.

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Saudi rom-com Barakah Meets Barakah a surprise hit at Berlin Film Festival