DUBAI: Saudi Arabia’s cultural scene is becoming increasingly significant both inside and outside of the Gulf region, with the Kingdom’s artists being collected by prestigious international institutions and fetching impressive prices at auction.  

But a common gripe is that there is little archival material on those creatives who, decades ago — and without any of the institutional support the current generation now enjoy — built careers for themselves and inspired those who came after them. 

In his documentary “When the Light Shines,” which screens at the Saudi Film Festival today, Saudi filmmaker Ryan Al-Bishri reveals one long-running initiative that bucks that trend. Layan Culture was officially established in 2007 by Prince Faissal bin Abdullah bin Mohammad Al-Saud and Princess Adelah bint Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Al-Saud, but stems from decades-long support for artists and creators from its founders.  

Layan is an archive, a collective, an “art-concept creator” and much more. It celebrates, promotes and is a patron of Saudi creatives. Its website states that its vision is also to “nurture artistic appreciation in the minds and hearts of the Saudi people.” However, despite its significance, Layan Culture is little-known, even inside the Kingdom. Al-Bishri hopes to change that. 

Al-Bishri was first introduced to Prince Faissal through his father, the fashion designer Yahya Al-Bishri.  

“I heard a lot of the stories through my father, of course. And then from Prince Faissal himself. And whenever they talked about it, it was just like ‘Wow!’ Stories I’d never heard —really interesting stuff from back in the 1960s,” Al-Bishri tells Arab News. 

A few of those stories — of trips overseas or to then-rarely visited areas of Saudi Arabia as the prince and his friends attempted to gather information about the Kingdom’s artistic and cultural heritage — made it into “When the Light Shines.” Indeed, Al-Bishri says, one in particular was the spark for the whole project. 

In the 1960s, American artist, photographer and explorer Gerhardt Liebmann entered Saudi Arabia through Yemen. “He just walked in — no visa or nothing — and started painting,” says Al-Bishri. Eventually, Liebmann was discovered by the authorities and deported.  

Years later, Prince Faissal and others were on a trip to Geneva. As they were walking past one of its many art galleries, the prince spotted a painting of a mosque minaret. The gallery provided the name of the artist (yes, Liebmann) and Prince Faissal reached out to him. In 1981, Liebmann returned to the Kingdom. The minaret, it turned out, was that of a mosque in Taif. Over the next few years, until Liebmann’s death in 1985, the artist visited regularly, painting portraits of some of the Kingdom’s rulers and its landmarks. Those works form part of Layan Culture’s extensive collection related to Saudi Arabia, much of which the organization has restored, and much of which has never been on public display. 

When putting the documentary together, Al-Bishri was himself left bemoaning the lack of material available from the 20th century. “There’s a lot of archive we wish we had,” he says. “Like, if there was any footage of Gerhardt and his journey and the people around him, that would have been really incredible.” 

Fortunately, Al-Bishri did have access to Prince Faissal’s personal footage. “He had a team around him who filmed, and we had to gather everything we could to get this together. As you see in the film, everyone is really down-to-earth and welcoming. They never had any formalities about anything. Even the prince himself.” 

That footage makes up some of the documentary’s most joyous scenes — including a camping trip to the Empty Quarter — in which you really get a sense of the camaraderie between this handful of people trying to create a lasting cultural legacy. As Al-Bishri’s father says in the film, “Across the Kingdom, there were only individual efforts by people, and only a few who were willing to support these few artists.”  

Those words are echoed on screen by artist, sculptor and photographer Dr. Dia Aziz Dia, who was given a scholarship to study art in Italy, but on his return, he says, “I was surprised that society wasn’t ready to embrace art.” 

“The prince connected a lot of people together. Without that, you’ve lost that sense of community. A lot of people might have given up,” says Al-Bishri. “Especially at a time where everyone was telling you what you’re doing is wrong. You know, my father got that for a long time: ‘This is not right, what you’re doing is very wrong.’ But finding a group of people who are there to support you, as an artist, was incredible. Now we have that, of course, the government, the ministries… all of this change, it’s wonderful. But it kind of feels like it misses the people before this — the people who fought, who struggled. We have to talk about them too. They started this. I want this film to bring people to Layan Culture so they can really appreciate the work that they’ve done.” 

It certainly seems to have done that. Since its premiere at the Red Sea International Film Festival late last year, “When the Light Shines” — the title alludes to Prince Faissal’s feeling that now was the time to make some more noise about the work of Layan Culture — has won Best Film at the Munich New Wave Film Festival and been officially selected to compete at Mexico City’s Mirada Corta Short Film Festival, East Village New York Film Festival, and the Florence Film Awards, as well as appearing at several other festivals. And Al-Bishri hopes his short documentary will spawn a television series.  

“There are so many stories that we discovered that even a feature-length film wouldn’t be enough,” he says. “What we want to do is make a short film about each artist where they talk about their journey. I think that would be great.” 

His goal is a simple one.  

“I want people to recognize the amount of work these people have put in. They sacrificed a lot and they had to fight a lot of people — a lot of family — just to do what they love,” he says. “A lot of these artists — a lot of these communities — were very quiet before and maybe they got used to that. But I think it’s very important that they should not be forgotten.”