Mountainfilm festival makes its debut in Saudi Arabia

Saudi Climbing Federation (SCF) hosted the first Mountainfilm festival in Jeddah as part of its world tour. A list of 10 short films of various topics including skiing, climbing, nature and running were shown.

The documentaries were filmed in great spots for climbing sports in Spain, France, the US, Nepal and Norway. The event took place at the auditorium of Waad Academy from 8-10:30 p.m.

Mountainfilm is an American documentary film festival that has been celebrated since 1979. It showcases nonfiction stories not just about climbing, but also about environmental, cultural, political and social justice issues.

SCF sets as its aim the promotion of mountain sports in the Kingdom, displaying their artistic and sensual aspects and their impact on the life of the individual and society to motivate Saudi society to go into the rich mountainous desert nature surrounding them, to encourage them to plan their own adventures outside the cities and to gather people of shared interests in one place.

Majed Al-Naji, director of operations at SCF, told Arab News: “It is really our first big event as a federation since we were founded in January. We started in Asharqiyah, we were in Riyadh last weekend and this is the last show of the tour.”

He added: “We wanted to promote climbing and such sports by opening people’s eyes to possibilities.”

Teams set up by the Royal Commission for Al-Ula and the SCF will identify, catalogue, map and mark climbing routes, as well as creating the infrastructure to ensure the safety of climbers and adventurers.

The festival started with a teaser clip about the tour of the SCF team to Al-Ula mountains, showing how hard the team are working to pave the way for this sport in mountains of Saudi Arabia.

Majid added: “We were invited by the Royal Commission for Al-Ula. In the future we want to hold climbing festivals and invite climbers from abroad. Once we open Saudi Arabia to outsiders people will want to come to climb here as Saudi Arabia has really one of the best climbing areas in the region.”