Khalid Al Siddiq(1945-2021)

Khaled Al-Siddiq is the pioneer of the Kuwaiti cinema, and the director of the first Kuwaiti feature film Cruel Sea (Bas ya Bahar), which was released in 1972 and nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at the 45th Academy Awards. has made important cinematic achievements in the history of cinema in Kuwait. He released several critically acclaimed features throughout his career, including The Wedding of Zein (Urs Al-Zayn) in 1976, adapted from the novel by Tayeb Salih, and Shaheen in 1986, based on the novel by Italian writer Giovanni Boccaccio, a joint production between Kuwait, India, and Italy.

Al-Siddiq received many awards and honors, especially for his movie Cruel Sea (Bas ya Bahar), including the first prize at the Youth Film Festival in Damascus (1972), the Honor Award at the First Tehran International Film Festival, the International Film Critics Award at the Venice Film Festival, and the second prize at the Ohio International Festival, in addition to several prizes from festivals and film forums in Chicago, Spain, Carthage and others. His movie The Wedding of Zein (Urs Al-Zayn) won seven International awards.