Wadjda is a film of important firsts. Not only is it the first film to be shot entirely within Saudi Arabia’s borders but more crucially it is the first Saudi film made by a female director. The significance of its production cannot be overstated but its social importance is perhaps greater than the film itself which is an inspirational yet ultimately conventional coming-of-age drama.

Waad Mohammed stars as the titular, Wadjda, a headstrong ten-year old girl with a rebellious and entrepreneurial streak who makes money from making bracelets whilst dreaming of owning a bicycle. However, in Saudi society such aspirations are frowned upon for young women who should know their place and not be heard. A Koran recital contest at…

Wadjda is one of those films with a reputation that precedes any question of its quality. It's the first film by a Saudi woman and the first film to be shot in Saudi Arabia, but oddly enough, it's thoroughly Western in both its narrative and outlook.

Thus combined, Wadjda becomes a film that is at once engaging and predictable, and depressing and uplifting in equal measure. The central performance by Waad Mohammed is the life and soul of Wadjda, and although the adults often falter in their roles, Mohammed and Abdulrahman Algohani, the boy who plays her only friend, play wonderfully off each other.

The film is quietly subversive due to Wadjda's adroit manipulation of the society she lives in,…

I know no one cares but i just rewatched this and i wanna talk about this movie a bit.
 It's the first ever Saudi feature film to be shot entirely in Saudi Arabia (and the filmmaker is a female). It's about wadjda, a 10 year old girl who has yet to fully comprehend the radical traditions of her country and as she slowly start to realize them she finds them unsuitable for her. She doesn't try to revolt against anything, she just looks away because after all, she's 10. She sets a goal to buy a bike so she can race her friend from the neighborhood, and that's when her journey starts. 
The plot seems so simple to make but…

A very simple story, but told with a big heart, Wadjda is a film entirely shot in Saudi Arabia about an intrepid girl who seeks to raise money participating in her school's Koran recitation competition in order to beat his annoying neighbour in a bicycle race. That's the entire central plot, but around it, several relevant elements about a repressed and fundamentalist society lie between frames, and come out to the surface very explicitly.

Relevant to say and trascendent to point out, Wadjda has historically national relevance in Saudi Arabia for being the first feature made by a female filmmaker. Around the main character Wadjda, we see the Muslim culture very explicitly and the current cultural state regarding the appreciation…

When you think about how much Wadjda has achieved in history, it's quite a miracle that this movie was made. Aside from being the first film shot entirely within Saudi Arabia, it is also the first film to have been directed by a Saudi woman. But even to think that it will seem conventional from an outsider's perspective of Saudi culture, there's a much greater level to which Wadjda speaks for because of what ground it breaks for their own society. It's a film that came right out from a country where we know that cinema in general had been banned for years, but the transgressive nature behind what we already can see as a simple coming-of-age tale is among…