Sharon Stone and Guy Ritchie Raise Eyebrows at Divisive Saudi Arabia Film Festival

Stars at Saudi Arabia’s second annual Red Sea International Film Festival have had to do more than their standard promotional duties. Special guests Sharon Stone and Guy Ritchie have both defended their reasons for attending the event, which is happening in a country with a history of human rights abuses. 

“I’m an envelope breaker, my success is to break the envelope, just like coming here,” Stone said during her hour-plus talk at the fest, according to The Hollywood Reporter. “Everyone said to me, ‘Aren’t you afraid?’ And I said, ‘I’m afraid not to know. So why don’t I go, see how it really is and I’ll tell you?’ What I’ve learned is that what everybody tells you isn’t always the way it is.”

Elsewhere during her appearance, she addressed criticism of women’s rights in the country. “Women are not here just to serve men. Men are also here to serve women,” Stone continued. “And if we are not serving equally, then we are disrespecting our maker.” The actor also recalled controversy she faced decades ago as a spokesperson for AmFAR, stating that she had “no idea of the resistance, the cruelty, the hate, the oppression that we would face,” according to Variety. While in a nation where homosexuality is criminalized, Stone recounted how her work with the organization “really destroyed” her career for an eight-year period. “I was threatened…repeatedly,” she added. “My life was threatened, and the more it happened, the more I thought I needed to stick with it.”

Stone capped off her speech by reflecting on her visit to Saudi Arabia. “I’m just a kid from Pennsylvania. I grew up with Amish people who drove into my driveway in their horse and buggy,” she said, according to THR. “There was no possibility for me to come to Saudi Arabia to meet you.”

Meanwhile, Ritchie, recipient of one of the festival’s honorary awards, told THR about accepting an invite: “Whatever I can do to encourage creativity, particularly in my world of film, I’m all about that,” adding, “I’m all about encouragement and the collaboration of culture.” The director and first-time Saudi Arabia visitor also stated that “some degree of the future lies here.”

The Red Sea Film Festival’s second edition arrives five years to the week that Saudi Arabia announced it would lift its 35-year ban on cinemas. Michael Page, deputy director of the Middle East and North Africa division at Human Rights Watch, told The Guardian that Saudi Arabian officials use “festivals as a reputation laundering tool, in the same way that they have used previous celebrity and sporting events to try to whitewash their quite terrible image.”

Attendees at the festival, which runs through December 10, include Spike Lee, Priyanka Chopra, Luca Guadagnino, Jackie Chan, Henry Golding, Michelle Rodriguez, and Freida Pinto, among others. Oscar-winning filmmaker Oliver Stone, who serves as president of the jury for the international competition, said Saudi Arabia was often misunderstood, urging that “people who judge it too harshly should come to visit and see it for themselves.” Several sources told The Hollywood Reporter that “many stars had been handsomely paid to appear” at the event. (Vanity Fair has reached out to the festival for comment.)