by REBECCA KEEGAN
In a country where women can’t freely move around, Haifaa Mansour covertly films the story of a girl’s quest for a bicycle.
The production lost two days to sandstorms. The crew faced a last-minute scramble when the nervous owner of a mall changed his mind about allowing filming there. Some days locals chased the cameras away; other days they brought platters of lamb and rice to the set, and asked to be extras.
Meanwhile, the director hid in a van, speaking to her cast via walkie-talkie.
In Saudi Arabia, where driving a car is a subversive act for a woman, a 39-year-old mother of two has done something remarkable: written and directed what her distributor believes is the first feature film shot entirely in the ultraconservative kingdom.
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“I didn’t want to make a movie about women being raped or stoned,” Mansour said in an interview in Beverly Hills in June. “For me it is the everyday life, how it’s hard. For me, it was hard sometimes to go to work because I cannot find transportation. Things like that build up and break a woman.”
Los Angeles Times for more
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