The Saudi Film Commission has selected Anas Ba Tahaf‘s A Matter of Life and Death as Saudi Arabia’s official submission for the best international feature film Oscar category at the 99th Academy Awards.
Written by and starring Sarah Taibah alongside Yaqoub Al Farhan, the film is produced by Film Clinic, Front Row Filmed Entertainment and Arabia Pictures, with Front Row handling international sales.
The film is set in contemporary Jeddah and blends romance, fantasy and black comedy in a highly stylized visual world.
“At heart, it is a love story, just not the safe kind,” a description of the movie notes. “At its center is Hayat, a fiercely independent young woman convinced that a generational curse will kill her on her 30th birthday. Having made peace with dying, she crosses paths with Yousef, a brilliant but emotionally detached heart surgeon living with bradycardia. His abnormally slow heartbeat only seems to quicken when he comes close to death – or to killing. As a surgeon surrounded every day by the fragile line between life and death, temptation is never far away.”
So, while she wants to die, he wants to kill, but inconveniently, they fall in love with each other.
“Hayat is impulsive, funny, stubborn, fearless and spectacularly headstrong, a contemporary Saudi woman written without explanation or apology,” says Front Row. “Her independence is not the story. It is simply who she is.”
‘A Matter of Life and Death’ film still, courtesy of Front Row
When the mythology behind Hayat’s curse is revealed, live-action briefly gives way to a handcrafted, gothic animated sequence.
A Matter of Life and Death received its world premiere at the Red Sea International Film Festival in December 2025, before opening theatrically across Saudi Arabia in late June 25.
A Matter of Life and Death was produced by Mohamed Hefzy for Film Clinic, Gianluca Chakra for Front Row Filmed Entertainment, and Abdulelah Alahmary and Ahmad Taema for Arabia Pictures, with support from the Red Sea Fund.
Saudi Arabia has never been nominated for the international Oscar.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will unveil the 15 films on the best international feature film shortlist on Dec. 15. The five nominees will be announced Jan. 21, 2027. The 99th Academy Awards ceremony will take place on March 14, 2027.
