7 years ago

Saudi Arabia Uncovered

Watch a rare revealing undercover footage inside look into Saudi Arabia

Watch a rare revealing undercover footage inside look into #SaudiArabia, draws on stunning undercover footage that depicts a different side of life in the country.

In January of 2015, a man named Raif Badawi was lashed in public in the Saudi Arabian city of Jeddah. 

His crime? Blogging critically about the role of religion in Saudi life in 2012 — an act that Saudi courts said insulted Islam. In addition to 1,000 lashes, Badawi, a secular activist with three young children, was sentenced to 10 years in prison.

When footage of Badawi’s lashing was secretly filmed on a cell phone and published online, FRONTLINE producer and director James Jones watched it. Then, he had an idea.

Watch full film here on FRONTLINE’s iplayer:

Trailer

British documentary filmmaker James Jones is an Emmy Award-winning and quadruple BAFTA-nominated director. His films are broadcast around the world, primarily on the BBC, Channel 4 and PBS Frontline.

“There’s this strange irony — in the past, the government has held punishments in public because they want the people to know what the potential consequences of crime are. Yet they don’t want the outside world to see it — they care about how they’re perceived.”

The resulting documentary — Saudi Arabia Uncovered — is a rare window into the Saudi kingdom, with stunning undercover footage as its backbone. FRONTLINE sat down with Jones to discuss his motivations for making the film, how he amassed footage from inside Saudi Arabia, and what surprised him the most along the way.  You can read James’s FRONTLINE interview below. The interview has been edited for clarity and length.

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Photo credit: RABIH MOGHRABI/AFP/Getty Images