Wednesday November 20th 2013
Saudi Arabia 2012  97 minutes
Director: Haifaa Al-Mansour
Starring: Waad Mohammed, Reem Abdullah, Abdullrahman Al Gohani.

Wadjda is the first film made by a female director in Saudi Arabia, a strict Islamist country with no cinemas. It tells a superficially simple tale of a free-spirited 11 year-old girl  (Wadjda) who dreams of buying a green bicycle to race against a friendly neighbourhood boy (Abdullah). To raise the money she enters a Koran recital competition at her all-girls school. Throughout the film the restraints of life in Saudi Arabia for women are brought out effectively and with subtlety; for example, the tensions in Wajda’s family as her father contemplates taking a second wife who can bear him a son. A glimpse into a culture and a country which looks modern but feels far from it.