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,…

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…

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…

March Around the World Challenge Film #7 - Saudi Arabia

There is nothing flashy about the film Wadjda, a simple story told in a simple fashion, a premise that to some may sound silly and uninteresting if the setting or the circumstances faced by the characters aren't taken into account. A young girl living in Saudi Arabia is being raised in a world that holds her gender to a set of strict, conservative rules, but she clearly wants more out of life than what is expected of her. One day she spots an item that she wants more than anything in the world, something shiny and beautiful and perfect: a brand new green bicycle.

What the bicycle symbolizes is more…

Wadjda, Saudi Arabia’s first entry for the Best Foreign Language film ( and the first feature film shot entirely in the country) is an extremely powerful and engaging film about the unspoken wishes, regrets and struggles of women in one of the world’s wealthiest nations, with an exceptionally simple narrative structure and a protagonist who is stubborn and realistic at the same time and like cinema’s most memorable heroes tries to change her fate, Haifaa Al-Mansour’s Wadjda is one of the most touching films of 2013 and one that will live for some time in the memory of its viewers.

It is not a complicated film, the story is simple. In a society where there are numerous taboos about how…

You wanna know what it's like living in Saudi Arabia? Watch this film and get educated, I can't tell you how many times I shook my head at the stupid rules this country has for women. But that's besides the point.

This film is shot entirely in Saudi Arabia, making it the first time a female director was allowed to make a movie in the country. Despite the rules the country has for women, I really enjoyed the heart and soul this movie offered, especially when it comes down to it the actress who plays Wadjda (Waad Mohammed) is just so charasmatic and fun to watch. Our main character is pretty much a rebel wtih a cause, she really wants…

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…

I saw a review or two in here criticizing this movie's "westernization", and that left me thinking a lot after watching it, tempering my initial love for the film's characters, its plot, and the ultimate message of the film.

Because of that, I spent the second time around racking my brains, trying to figure out whether Westernization meant the more conventional narrative, or Wadjda listening and enjoying "western entertainment" (music and sketchers) and how there might be a link with that and her more progressive attitude. I wonder, however, who are we as outsiders to judge the movie in those grounds? And I ask that because, seeing how it was directed someone who must have had her fair share of…

While watching the few movies that I have this month, I've noticed a trend in those where a girl or woman is the main character: their "coming of age" involves finding out about the *particular* experience of being a Woman (capitalized, because it the social Woman), whereas those with boys or men deals (or pretends to) with more "universal" themes of being a "good *person*", or a "good human".

Despite there being only two traditional, socially accepted genders in western culture, one of them is Other, the "difference" in the universal experience that is being "male". And I find that both fascinating (of the two accepted roles, one is not equal to the other! Out of two! And let's not…

Wadjda (Waad Mohammed) is a ten-year-old Saudi girl who wants to have a bike to compete with her friend Abdullah (Abdullrahman Al Gohani). However, a girl riding a bike is very poorly seen in her culture, so it won’t be easy for her to get it.

The Saudi monarchy is one of the most restrictive political regimes in the world, especially for women. Over there, they’re little more than a zero on the left, completely subjected to the patriarchy. They can’t drive, can’t have reunions in public spaces with men who don’t belong to their family, and when they reach puberty, they must use an abaya that covers their body from neck to foot. In “Wadjda”, filmmaker Haifaa Al-Mansour, inspired…