Saudi Arabia’s film industry has infrastructure. It has funding. It has ambition. What it needs now, increasingly, is writers.
Netflix and Saudi creative hub Righters House are addressing that gap directly with “Write the Future – Feature Film Writers Lab,” a new three-month program designed to professionalize screenwriting in the Kingdom and strengthen the pipeline from idea to screen.
Building Stories From the Ground Up
The lab will select 18 emerging Saudi screenwriters and guide them through the complete architecture of feature-film development. Delivered in Arabic across three regions, Asir, Al Madinah, and the Eastern Province, the program blends online masterclasses with in-person workshops, mirroring real production workflows.
By the program’s end, each participant will have completed a full development package: logline, synopsis, treatment, pitch deck, and recorded pitch. The curriculum focuses on story development, character building, narrative structure, and the art of pitching, the foundational skills required to move from concept to greenlight.
Why This Matters Now
As Saudi Arabia’s production capacity expands, the bottleneck has shifted. Strong scripts remain the critical step in sustaining momentum. The Writers Lab aims to bridge that gap by connecting local storytelling with global industry standards and equipping writers with the skills to pitch to international decision-makers.
Pelin Mavili, Netflix Director of Global Affairs for MENA and Turkey, emphasized the strategic importance of investing directly in writers as a way to sustain the region’s emerging voices. Rulan Hasan, Co-founder and Head of Content at Righters House, described the initiative as strategic empowerment for a new generation of Saudi storytellers.
Part of a Larger Infrastructure
The Writers Lab doesn’t stand alone. It’s the latest in a series of Netflix-backed training initiatives across Saudi Arabia:
- 2023: Creative Producer Training program in Riyadh with USC, supporting 15 professionals
- 2024: Saudi Female Future Filmmakers Program with Sard and NEOM, training 15 women filmmakers
- 2021–2022: NCIG TV Writers’ Lab across Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, delivered with NYFA certification
- Ongoing: Partnerships with Saudi Production Training (SPT) for on-set training
Together, these programs form a talent pipeline spanning writing, production, and directing, a long-term strategy to professionalize the entire creative process.
Writing the Industry’s Future
Application details haven’t been announced yet, but the program’s objective is clear: transform Saudi writers into professionals capable of developing feature films that can compete globally.
In a moment when Saudi cinema is expanding rapidly, this initiative recognizes a fundamental truth: you can’t build a sustainable film industry without the people who write the stories that make it worth watching.
The infrastructure will follow the talent. But first, someone has to write it.
