Photographed by Abduljalil Al Nasser.
Mohammed Al Turki is set to executive produce opioid thriller, Dreamland, alongside director Nicholas Jarecki. The Saudi cinephile was also one of the producers for Jarecki’s 2012 film, Arbitrage, which earned a Golden Globe nomination for its star, Richard Grere.
In the not-yet-released movie, which stars Oscar-winning Gary Oldman and Golden Globe nominees Armie Hammer, and Evangeline Lilly, three worlds of opioids collide. A drug trafficker arranges a multi-cartel Fentanyl smuggling operation between Canada and the U.S., an architect recovering from an OxyContin addiction tracks down the truth behind her son’s involvement with narcotics, and a university professor battles unexpected revelations about his research employer, a drug company with deep government influence bringing a new “non-addictive” painkiller to market. Principal photography is currently underway in Montreal and Detroit.
Al Turki’s first taste of film-making was during a summer course in school, after he was assigned to shoot a music video. “I enjoyed being behind the camera and all the creativity involved in creating something for an audience. This experience triggered a desire to do things on an even bigger scale – although I never thought it could be possible,” he previously revealed to Vogue Arabia.
He would go on to serve as executive producer for indie festival favorite The Imperialists Are Still Alive! in 2010. The film would go on to win awards at the Warsaw and San Francisco International Asian American festivals, planting the then 23-year-old as a young producer to watch.
The producer, who studied media communications in London, has always had a passion for film, despite growing up in a time in Saudi Arabia where public cinemas were banned (the ban was lifted in 2018). Al Turki would stock up on DVD’s and box sets of his favorite TV shows when he’d travel abroad, and occasionally cross a bridge to reach Bahrain from the Khobar area, where he lived, to watch a movie at the theatre.
