Three years ago, Saudi Arabia had no cinemas. Now it has produced its first homegrown animated feature, which completed a run in the country’s newly opened theaters and beyond, before being picked up for global distribution by Netflix. Quite a turnaround.

That feature is Masameer: The Movie, an irreverent and socially-aware comedy based on the eponymous Youtube series by Riyadh-based studio Myrkott. The series lightly satirizes cultural tensions in the kingdom, taking advantage of the same liberalizing climate that allowed cinemas to open (or rather, to reopen after a 35-year ban). The online shorts have found a wide audience of young Saudis, as well as across the Arab world, racking up more than half a billion views to date.

While the opening of theaters prompted Myrkott to make a movie in the first place, the youth of the exhibition market posed challenges for the project. Below, the film’s director Malik Nejer tells Cartoon Brew what it takes to make an animated feature in a society that is fairly new to both cinemagoing and animation production.