All of a sudden, Saudi Arabia remembered “his excellency” Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Prince Talal resorted to a common friend to mediate with Assad to stop the release of“King of the Sands,” a film by Syrian director Najdat Anzour.

In a statement posted on his Twitter account, Prince Talal pleaded with Syrian authorities to stop the movie’s release and addressed the chivalry of the Syrian people, ignoring the fact that the Saudi government has been fueling the country’s civil war for the past three years.

Prince Talal blasted the director of “King of the Sands,” a biopic about his father Abdul-Aziz al-Saud, founder of the Saudi Wahhabi monarchy. In the statement titled “Jihad al-nikah director continues on his journey downhill,” Prince Talal described Anzour as “the first promoter of jihad al-nikah” through his 2010 television series “Ma Malakat Aymanukum,” or “What Your Right Hands Possess.”

He said that “King of the Sands” has “only caused pain and sorrow in the hearts of the public, but its director is determined to continue on his journey downhill,” adding that “the movie has already been released in London and it hasn’t been successful.”

“Saudi Arabia has been subjected to many biased media campaigns that didn’t spare cinemas, and each of them failed to undermine the kingdom’s glory and its sublime position in the Arab and Islamic worlds,” Prince Talal said in his statement.

Prince Talal, father of Saudi billionaire Al-Waleed bin Talal, revealed that he has mediated through a common friend “with his excellency President Bashar al-Assad in order to stop the movie’s release in Damascus,” hoping that Assad would respond “for the sake of the stature of King Abdul-Aziz, of whom our brotherly Syria and its loyal people cannot forget the charitable work and permanent support.”

“King of the Sands” debuted in London at a private screening on 11 September 2013. At the time, the director intentionally associated the film’s release date with the anniversary of the 9\11 attacks on the United States.

He later came to Beirut to meet with media outlets and speak about the film, then headed to Syria.

Anzour chose Damascus cinemas to show his movie, defying all lawsuits that accused him of “defaming and slandering a royal personality and a royal family.”

The big-budget film – starring Italian actors Marco Foschi and Fabio Testi as the young and old King Abdul-Aziz respectively, along with a number of Lebanese, Syrian, and Turkish actors – is the first movie to sincerely tackle the story of an Arab king, disregarding the glorification policy predominant in the majority of Arab-produced biopics.

In a phone interview with Al-Akhbar, Anzour stressed that the movie “is an endorsement for Syria and targets those who ruined our country,” adding that “for me, Syria is the number one priority.”

“The price of this movie is so expensive, they cannot afford it. Its price is the blood of our martyrs, the destruction of our country, and the material of our army,” he said. Anzour considers the film “a political position because I only have my camera, it is my only arm.”

“If they managed to silence me today, a hundred new Najdat Anzours would be born tomorrow,” he added.