The Global Power of Film Markets

by Fatimah Allawaim

Cinema doesn’t grow in isolation; it grows in dialogue. Behind every movement that changed film history — from Italian neorealism to Korean new wave — there were conversations happening in the hallways of markets, co-production meetings, and festival cafés. These are the places where filmmakers meet possibility, where industries mirror each other, and where a nation’s cinematic identity begins to take shape.

Cannes, Berlinale, and Red Sea Souk may look like marketplaces, but they are also ecosystems of trust. They’re spaces where stories cross borders before they ever reach a screen. A film market isn’t simply about buying and selling; it’s about seeing — seeing what the world is dreaming, fearing, and believing through its cinema.

For emerging industries like Saudi Arabia, attending these spaces is an act of translation. It’s how we learn the language of global storytelling — not just how to pitch, but how to listen. At markets, filmmakers realize that cinema is not a product; it’s a conversation between cultures. You don’t just trade content — you exchange sensibilities.

What’s often misunderstood is that these gatherings are where entire national movements are born. When South Korea began showing films at international markets in the 1990s, it wasn’t only exporting movies; it was exporting identity. The same was true for Iran in the post-revolution years, when minimalism and metaphor became its cinematic signature. Each market meeting, each screening, each handshake became a thread in a larger cultural narrative.

Today, Saudi filmmakers stand at a similar threshold. The Red Sea Souk has become more than a regional platform; it’s a declaration that our stories belong to the global table. Every project presented there, every dialogue between a Saudi director and an international distributor, contributes to reshaping how the world imagines Arab cinema. It’s no longer about representation alone — it’s about collaboration.

Markets are also classrooms. They teach the unspoken curriculum of cinema: how to sustain an idea beyond passion, how to build bridges between art and infrastructure. In these spaces, filmmakers learn that a great story isn’t enough — it needs partners, context, and persistence. They see how films are not just made but carried, how trust and credibility become their own form of currency.

The energy of a film market is unlike any other part of the industry. You walk through aisles of posters and meetings where future films are quietly taking shape. Some conversations will never become contracts, but they still matter — because they build an awareness of global rhythm. You begin to understand how audiences are shifting, what kinds of stories the world is craving, and how your local truth fits into that pattern.

As a Saudi cinema programmer, I’ve seen how this exposure transforms perspective. It gives you both humility and ambition — humility to realize how vast the cinematic world is, and ambition to know your voice can live within it. The Souk, in particular, has given Arab and African creators a home turf to speak from, not just into. It’s not a satellite version of Cannes; it’s a new pole of gravity — one where the global gaze finally turns south and listens.

Film markets also challenge the idea of isolation. When one film from our region succeeds internationally, it lifts the ecosystem behind it — the writers, producers, designers, and institutions that made it possible. A single sale or award might seem individual, but its echo is collective. Each success shifts perception, telling the world that we are not newcomers; we are the continuation of a story that has always existed, now given voice and visibility.

What happens in markets matters not because of money, but because of meaning. They are where we define how our stories move through the world. They turn cinema from a local act of expression into a global act of connection.

In the end, the power of film markets is not in the deals signed, but in the worlds imagined together. It’s in the moment a Saudi producer connects with a French co-producer and realizes they share the same emotion behind their stories. It’s in the laughter between filmmakers from opposite sides of the world who discover they’ve both shot the same sunrise, just in different deserts.

Cinema is built on these invisible bridges. And as Saudi Arabia continues to build its cinematic presence, the Red Sea Souk stands not just as a market, but as a movement — one that reminds us that storytelling, at its core, is an act of belonging.