Saudi Arabia
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Action and Cut: Film Schools, Guerrilla Filmmaking and the New “Saudi Cinema”
“End the trip? I’ll take you to the police.” The driver, Saudi, early 20s, looked into the rear view mirror at me and the woman next to me in the back seat. I had asked him, “You always ask your riders their nationality?” Finally, he responded, “You’re in an Islamic state, and you must respect the laws of this country!” Having lived in Sudan and Libya and grown up in largely conservative Chad just a couple countries over, I was not new to “Islamic states.” Despite Saudi Arabia’s massive economic and cultural overhaul in recent years, the legal system still […]
by Bentley Brown on Jun 11, 2018 -
Wadjda Breaks Ground with First Ever Feature Film From Saudi Arabia
The best type of filmmaking takes us into worlds we’ve never seen before. Through cinema, we can journey into the past, into the future, to outer space, just around the corner, or to the ends of the world. But there’s one place we haven’t been, until now. A new film, Wadjda, breaks down one giant cinematic barrier, marking the first feature fully shot in Saudi Arabia in the history of film. And on top of that, its director, Haifaa Al Mansour, is a woman. Wadjda, played by Waad Mohammed, is a 10-year-old girl growing up in a world built upon […]
by Ariston Anderson on Jan 30, 2013
