The acclaimed Australian film-maker Phillip Noyce is being paid by the Saudi regime to make a feature film portraying the repressive state’s narcotics officers as heroes. The Watchful Eyes, based on a real Saudi ministry of interior narcotics case, is billed as a dramatic depiction of the “heroism of security men in combating drugs”. Related: ‘Amoral, evil’: vitriolic backlash builds against comics who played Riyadh festival