'My Driver and I' was supported by the Cairo Film Connection, the UK Global Screen Fund, and the Red Sea Film Foundation.
Ahd Kamel’s Saudi feature My Driver and I will hold its world premiere as part of the Arab Spectacular Program at the fourth Red Sea International Film Festival (December 5 to 14) in Saudi Arabia. The film follows the story of Salma, a young, privileged, and rebellious Saudi girl whose family hires a Sudanese man to drive her to and from her day-to-day activities.
Initially adhering to a simple employer/employee dynamic, Salma and Gamar’s relationship quickly evolves into an intimate personal friendship that bonds them through her teenage years and beyond, but their friendship is put to the test when Salma gets older and starts taking the wheel. A heart-wrenching tale, it shows the overlap of Sudanese society in Saudi Arabia like never before.
Commenting on her film, director Ahd Kamed said: “The film opens a window on a certain strand of late 20th-century Saudi society, looking deep into the core of a privileged household where the hired-help become part of the family, and watching as a girl’s universal journey through adolescence comes into contact with the reality of societal expectations.”
My Driver and I, which is Kamel’s directorial feature debut, was supported by the Cairo Film Connection, the UK Global Screen Fund, and the Red Sea Film Foundation. It stars Roula Dakheelallah, Rana Alamuddin, Qusai Kheder, and Mustafa Shehata. Shehata made his debut in Amjad Abu Alala’s film You Will Die at Twenty, which received widespread critical acclaim at international film festivals, winning the Best Debut Feature at the Venice Film Festival and was Sudan’s official submission to the Academy Awards for Best International Feature Film in 2021. Rounding out the cast is the Sudanese filmmaker Amjad Abu Alala, the director behind You Will Die at Twenty.
A joint production between Saudi Arabia and the UK, My Driver and I was directed and written by Ahd Kamel, lensed by Frida Marzouk, and edited by Andonis Tratto, with sound handled by Emmanuel Zouki and music by Marc Codsi. The film was produced by Georgie Paget and Thembisa Cochrane, with co-
productions by Caspian Films, Corniche Media, and Odd Kamel Films. The feature is being produced as an OSN+ Original and will air on OSN+ and OSNtv. MAD Solutions holds all international distribution rights outside Arab-speaking territories.
Ahd Kamel is an award-winning actress and filmmaker from Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. who is best known for her roles in the 2014 BAFTA-nominated film Wadjda, and the 2018 BBC2/Netflix series Collateral. Ahd grew up in Saudi Arabia and moved to New York City in 1998, where she received a BFA in Animation & Communication from Parsons School of Design in 2014 and a directing degree from New York Film Academy in 2015. She then went on to study acting under the personal tutelage of William Esper at the William Esper Studio. Ahd has written, directed, and acted in her two award-winning short films, The Shoemaker (2009) and Sanctity (2012), with the latter becoming the first Saudi film to compete at the Berlinale. Ahd was also selected as a Young Global Leader in 2019 by the World Economic Forum.
