‘Champions’ is being produced by Oscar-winning producer Andrés Vicente Gómez and directed by Manuel Calvo.
Saudi Arabian production house Al Maha Al Arabi Production and Creative Media Solutions in the UAE have partnered to produce a feature film titled Champions. The shooting has begun in Jeddah with filming scheduled for seven consecutive weeks.
Champions is a remake of Spanish film Campeones adapted to the Arab market by Saudi scriptwriters Maram Taibah and Wael Al Saeed. The 90-minute film tells the story of Khaled, an assistant coach at Ittihad in Saudi Arabia’s top football league. After Khaled loses his job due to some circumstances, he is made to coach a group of players with intellectual disabilities.
The filmmakers were inspired to make this film in Saudi Arabia by the true story of the Intellectual Impairment Saudi Football team, which managed to be Champions – four times in a row- of the International Intellectual Impairment tournament.
Starring Yassir Al Saggaf, the famous host of The Voice (MBC) talent show alongside Fatima Al Banawi of Barakah Meets Barakah, the film will be co-starred by Jeddah-based people with intellectual disabilities, many of them recruited from the Help Center with the aid of its director, Maha Al Juffali.
A crew of 90 film professionals from Saudi Arabia and Spain will be filming in various locations of the cities of Jeddah and following that, Dubai. The film will be released by VOX in all GCC countries starting September/October 2020.
The film’s production company Al Maha Al Arabi is a company owned by HRH Prince Turki Al Faisal and HRH Prince Saud Bin Turki Al Faisal, who were responsible for the recent success “Born a King”, a film about the youth of King Faisal.
