Dubai: Great family films have the power to change lives. Saudi filmmaker Khaled Fahd should know, because it was Disney’s “The Lion King” that changed him. Now, nearly three decades later, Fahd hopes to do the same for a new generation, tapping into Saudi Arabia’s timeless magic with the kingdom’s first-ever family film, “Valley Road,” which has become a staple for both film and television. It is a moving film. The country he loves so much.

Of course, this was not always Fahad’s intention. In fact, the initial idea that spawned “Valley Road” came to him during a visit to his brother’s house, when he talked to his young niece and wondered why she didn’t talk back.

“I asked her mother, ‘Why isn’t she answering with words?’ And he explained to me that he had a disorder called ‘selective mutism.’ It will be a small indie film around them,” Fahad tells Arab News.

Then I thought, ‘Why am I writing this story?’ And I started thinking back to myself at that age. I realized I wanted to make the world bigger, the kind of family film I once fell in love with. I wanted stirring music, big special effects, singing and dancing – a really expansive world. I realized that this was something that no one here had ever done before,” he continues.

As brilliant as it sounds on paper, projecting it in a country that has never produced a film of such ambition will be no easy feat. Fahad started making clips with his friends on YouTube, graduating to bigger and bigger short films over the last decade in which he honed his skills and developed his style. He knew he was ready in person, but who would help him meet the challenge?

“First, I went to Squids, a VFX company based in Egypt, not knowing if I could even afford them. I told them the story in detail, and they said nothing. Then they Everyone started laughing. I didn’t know what to think! But before I stood up and walked out, he said to me, ‘Ever since we were kids, we’ve been dreaming of working on a project like this. “We will do it with you, even if we have to do it for free,” says Fahad.

The filmmaker began identifying the talent he wanted to work with — musicians, producers, even big names like Saudi singer and actress Aseel Imran. One by one, as they heard his story, they joined his cause. With all his talents, he contacted the King Abdulaziz Center for World Culture in Dharan, which he knew wanted to start funding films. They were impressed, but still skeptical.

“They said, ‘It’s a risky project. It’s a fantasy adventure, and you want to build your own village and move everybody there to shoot for a whole month? How can you pull that off?’ ?’ Undaunted, I ended up going all over the country, finally finding an area in the south that would let us build a village if we agreed to clear it later. Meanwhile, we were working tirelessly on our concept. — storyboards, VFX samples, even scores and original songs. After a full year of work to prove that we had what it takes, Athara agreed to come on board and fund our film, Fahad says.

Even with all of this, the most important piece was yet to be discovered: a child actor who could play the lead role of Ali, a select, quiet young boy from a village on the adventure of a lifetime. Is. . He knew he needed an unknown, someone with no advertising or television experience, who had the genuine innocence and untapped imagination that the film needed.

“We spent 10 days auditioning 150 kids in Riyadh. Finally, a mother came with two sons, but only one was there for the audition. Our casting supervisor saw the other brother sitting there in the hallway, and He asked, ‘Why aren’t you auditioning? You’d better come in and audition too, because you never know — you might be the one!’ After some hesitation, he agreed, and we soon knew that the boy, Hamad Farhan, was our Ali,” says Fahad.

As 10-year-old Hamad and the rest of the cast study tirelessly to bring Fahad’s vision to life, working with acting coaches and even a choreographer flown in from abroad to pull off the big musical numbers, Fahad himself. Went back to the movies. That inspired him. Day and night, he studied Disney films and other influential family films from both Hollywood and Bollywood to figure out how to make his $1.5 million budget feel at least 10 times that, a He achieved the feat.

“I had to learn the visual language of these movies, because it’s a really universal language. Around the world, when people see movies like ‘Aladdin,’ ‘Coco,’ ‘Encanto,’ or ‘Luca,’ they see the characters and can immediately relate to the stories. That’s what I knew I had to achieve, so that our Saudi story would resonate the same way theirs did,” says Fahd.

While the team was proud of their creation, Fahad wasn’t sure how audiences would react until the film debuted at the Red Sea International Film Festival in December 2022. , and celebrities and movie stars from around the world sat in the audience, including the legendary Jackie Chan.

“It was heavy, but as soon as it was over, everyone started screaming and clapping. It was a magical moment. I knew we’d done something crazy, but I didn’t know people were going to like it. “But then people came up to me to tell me that it was so touching that they cried,” says Fahad.

However, the most important thing for Fahad was not that he had finished what others thought was impossible. It was heartening that people in Saudi Arabia and around the world connected with her sprawling fantasy, but what touched her most was how everyone in the audience could relate to her poor niece’s pain. was In that moment, it was clearer than ever that the power of cinema can help us understand any human experience.

“People were shocked,” says Fahad. “They said to me, ‘This guy is quiet, but he says a lot. We know what he’s feeling, and we feel it, too.’ It means the world to me.”