Film Taking Aim at Saudi Monarchy Opens in Syria Syria is hitting back at Saudi Arabia for supporting rebels who want to topple President Bashar Assad by promoting an English-language movie that depicts the founder of the monarchy as a bloodthirsty womanizer. "King of the Sands" opened to much fanfare under tight security Thursday at the Damascus Opera House despite calls from the Saudi royal family to have it banned, underlining the unprecedented downturn in relations between the two countries. The much-touted first screening, attended by more than 1,000 officials and VIPs amid a raging civil war, demonstrated how far Syrian authorities were willing to go to lash out at the oil-rich kingdom, which they accuse of funding the uprising and sending scores of suicide bombers and extremists into Syria. Several mortar shells crashed about 100 meters (yards) from the venue during the screening. "King of the Sands" is directed by Najdat Anzour, one of Syria's best-known producers and most acclaimed directors, who is also an Assad supporter. The movie debuted in London at a private screening on Sept. 11, a date that Anzour suggested he had chosen to highlight that the terrorists who carried out the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the U.S. had their roots in Saudi Arabia. The film purports to show events leading up to the creation of Saudi Arabia in 1932. In the movie, King Abdul-Aziz Al Saud is portrayed as a merciless ruler fighting opponents with a sword, commanding that the hands of thieves be cut off, ordering the stoning of couples for having premarital sex, and taking numerous wives himself. He is also shown as a man who enjoys underage women. What's wrong with blood? A kingdom is only taken with blood. The sultan will never be obeyed but by the sword," Abdul-Aziz, played by Italian actors Fabio Testi and Marco Foschi, is shown as saying in the film. "A sword was raised for the sake of the kingdom and the sultan making the sand soaked with blood," a narrator says. The movie has enraged the Saudi monarchy. Prince Talal bin Abdul-Aziz, a half brother of Saudi King Abdullah, posted a statement on his official Twitter account this month, saying he had asked a mutual friend of Assad to try to convince the president to ban the movie. "I hope he responds positively in honoring King Abdul-Aziz as a person," the Saudi prince wrote, adding: "We cannot let such unsuccessful works tarnish the image of a great historical figure like King Abdul-Aziz." The movie, which uses clichés and crude language to make its point, breaks longstanding taboos when it comes to criticism of Saudi Arabia in the Arab world. The Saudi monarch is the custodian of Islam's two holiest shrines in Mecca and Medina, a position that lends him special importance and influence. Fadia Kiwan, a political science professor at Beirut's St. Joseph University, said showing a movie that tarnishes symbols in Saudi Arabia may bring relations "to the point of no return." There has rarely been any warmth in the Syria-Saudi relationship, which plummeted in 2005 after the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, one of the kingdom's closest allies. Syria denied involvement but was blamed by many.