JEDDAH: Lauded US director Spike Lee was at Jeddah’s Red Sea International Film Festival on Sunday to present a screening of his Oscar-nominated 1992 epic biopic “Malcolm X.”
He also took part in an In Conversation event and touched on a number of topics, including whether her would consider filming in Saudi Arabia.
Spike Lee at the Red Sea International Film Festival. (AFP)
“I can barely speak English. I speak fluent Brooklynese. There are so many things I want to do but to come into a culture you don’t know is dangerous territory. I’ve seen that in many attempts to make films about Black people,” he said.
The director’s trip coincides with the 30th anniversary of his film on American civil rights activist Malcolm X — the first fiction feature to shoot in Makkah, using a Muslim crew to shoot B-roll in the city.
“It was imperative that we shoot, that we film Malcolm’s Hajj so we were the first film ever allowed to bring a camera in the old city of Mecca. I couldn’t go. We hired a Muslim crew. The highest law court, they didn’t do that for me, they realized how important Malcolm was to Islam,” he said.
“We had a screening yesterday. That is the first time Malcolm X has ever been screened in the country on a movie screen. We’ve come full circle.”
