The Book of Sun

2010, Jeddah. Husam is in his last year at school and doing badly. The examinations are close and his family is pressing him. In that period video publishing over the internet is newly spreading in the country; young people are making short comedy videos and getting large audiences. Husam gets into it. He starts a channel with his friends. At the same time he is trying to reach a girl, and the ways of doing that in the city are limited. School, family and the channel do not run together. Faris Godus directs. Baraa Alem and Sohayb Godus are in the cast. It is a Saudi production. The period it describes is real; cinemas were closed in the country in those years and the internet was the only field of circulation for young makers. The director was himself among the video makers of that time and the narrative comes directly from that experience. It is one of the few domestic productions made in the founding period of Saudi cinema; the cinemas reopened in 2018 and the film came after that change. The form is youth comedy; the humour is built on local daily life. The matter it treats is permission; everything requires someone's approval and the narrative shows that directly. Its limit is structure; the narrative is loose and some strands do not resolve. Who it is for: anyone curious about Gulf cinema and youth narratives. Who it is not for: the structure is loose, the humour local, and the technical quality limited.