2019 Winners & Shortlists

Write a short summary of what happens in the film.

To complete his doctoral thesis, our hopeful hero embarks on a journey to the middle of nowhere to find a mythical creature that has never been seen before. We watch the hardships he faces and the experiments he conducts to do so. However, as time goes by and with no sign of the creature at all, he starts losing hope and realizes it was nothing more than a wild goose chase. That’s when - in a strange twist of events - the hunter becomes the prey, and a beautiful, odd new friendship is created around a campfire, over a cup of tea, with a smartphone and some good tunes! And naturally, with such an unlikely bond, people take notice!

Cultural/Context information for the jury.

• The mythical creature, in this case a Uromastyx, is one of the most common and popular reptiles in Saudi Arabia and the region. Yet, the “white” Uromastyx doesn’t actually exist. • The line “the hole I live in is huge” is a sarcastic take on the fact that the hole a Uromastyx lives in is usually very small. • The “pressure cooker” is a Saudi inside joke that hits on the traditional way Saudis cook a Uromastyx.