{"id":27311,"date":"2020-01-16T14:22:14","date_gmt":"2020-01-16T20:22:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/?p=27311"},"modified":"2020-01-16T14:22:14","modified_gmt":"2020-01-16T20:22:14","slug":"things-you-learn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/2020\/01\/16\/things-you-learn\/","title":{"rendered":"Things You Learn"},"content":{"rendered":"

From AL Monitor’s<\/em><\/strong> Mid-week Middle East<\/em> lobbying<\/em> newsletter:<\/p>\n

\n

Saudi movie industry spent more than $1 million on Cannes film festival PR<\/strong><\/p>\n

Saudi Arabia<\/strong>\u00a0spent more than $1 million on a public relations campaign to promote itself as a film destination at the world\u2019s glitziest movie festival in 2018, newly disclosed lobbying filings\u00a0reveal<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Los Angeles-based\u00a0Rogers & Cowan<\/strong>\u00a0signed a seven-week contract in April 2018 with the UAE branch of\u00a0Bell Pottinger<\/strong>\u00a0spinoff\u00a0Consulum<\/strong>, which in turn was hired by\u00a0Saudi Arabia<\/strong>\u2019s General Culture Authority and the\u00a0Saudi Film Council<\/strong>. Rogers & Cowan received more than $1.2 million from Consulum to promote the Saudi film industry at the Cannes Film Festival in May 2018, including $154,000 in expenses (the latter included more than $32,000 for hotels and $48,000 for airfare). The registered agents on the account were\u00a0Dennis Dembia<\/em><\/strong><\/a>,\u00a0Sidney Angela Dizon<\/em><\/strong><\/a>,\u00a0Jason Magner<\/em><\/strong><\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Ryan Smith<\/em><\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re using Cannes as a platform to say, \u2018Here we are.\u2019 You know? Welcome to Saudi,\u201d\u00a0Ahmad al-Maziad<\/em><\/strong>, the CEO of Saudi Arabia\u2019s General Culture Authority,\u00a0told<\/a>\u00a0Vanity Fair at the time. \u201cWe\u2019re coming to build an industry. We\u2019re not coming for a marketing campaign or a one-off hub of activity.\u201d The magazine was one of dozens of US media companies approached by Rogers & Cowan, according to lobbying disclosures.<\/p>\n

A few months later, with the murder of journalist\u00a0Jamal Khashoggi<\/em><\/strong>, the Saudis suffered a deep blow to their $64 billion push to create a world-class film industry. Hollywood\u2019s relationship with the fledgling Saudi film industry came under\u00a0widespread scrutiny<\/a>\u00a0as a result. In October 2019, the Saudis\u00a0flew in<\/a>\u00a0film stars including\u00a0Jackie Chan<\/em><\/strong>,\u00a0Jason Momoa\u00a0<\/strong><\/em>and\u00a0Jean-Claude Van Damme<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0to attend a Saudi entertainment conference, the first Hollywood stars to visit since Khashoggi\u2019s murder.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

$64 billion<\/strong><\/em>? That’s a heckuva seed for their new industry. However, I’m afraid that autocracy, no matter how ‘liberal’ they try to make it, isn’t a salubrious atmosphere for the creation of an industry that depends on personal initiative, because that tends to get stamped out. Even the upper echelons have to toe the line carefully, as Mohammad bin Salman demonstrated a few years ago<\/a>.<\/p>\n

And just creating propaganda surely shouldn’t cost $64 billion.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From AL Monitor’s Mid-week Middle East lobbying newsletter: Saudi movie industry spent more than $1 million on Cannes film festival PR Saudi Arabia\u00a0spent more than $1 million on a public relations campaign to promote itself as a film destination at the world\u2019s glitziest movie festival in 2018, newly disclosed lobbying \u2026 Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27311","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27311","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27311"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27311\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27313,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27311\/revisions\/27313"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27311"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27311"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27311"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}