Wadjda

Plot

Based in the 2000s, Wadjda, an 11-year-old Saudi girl living in the capital Riyadh, dreams of owning a green bicycle that she passes in a store every day on her way to school. She wants to race against her friend Abdullah, a boy from the neighborhood, but riding bikes is frowned upon for girls and Wadjda's mother refuses to buy one for her daughter. Wadjda tries to find the money herself by selling mixtapes, hand-braiding bracelets for classmates and acting as a go-between for an older student, activities which run her afoul of the strict headmistress. Her mother, meanwhile, is dealing with a job with a terrible commute and a husband who is considering taking on a second wife, because Wadjda's mother can no longer have children.

Wadjda decides to participate in a Quran recital competition featuring a SR1,000 cash prize (equivalent of about US$270) which would allow her to pay for the SR800 bike. Her efforts at memorizing the verses impress her teacher, but when Wadjda wins the competition, she shocks the staff by announcing her intention to buy a bicycle with the prize money. She is told that the money will instead be donated to Palestine on her behalf.

Wadjda returns home to find that her father has taken a second wife, and that her mother, now sporting a shorter haircut that she wanted but her husband opposed, has bought the green bicycle from the toy store. The next day, Wadjda wins her race against Abdullah.

Cast

Production

According to the director Haifaa al-Mansour, it took five years to make Wadjda. She spent most of the time trying to find financial backing and getting filming permission, since she insisted on filming in Saudi Arabia for reasons of authenticity. She received backing from Rotana, the film production company of Prince Alwaleed bin Talal. However, she very much wanted to find a foreign co-producer because "in Saudi there are no movie theatres, there is no film industry to speak of and, therefore, little money for investment". After her selection for a Sundance Institute writer's lab in Jordan, al-Mansour got in touch with the German production company Razor Film, which had previously produced films with Middle-Eastern topics (Paradise Now and Waltz with Bashir). The production involved co-operation with two German public TV broadcasters, Norddeutscher Rundfunk and Bayerischer Rundfunk. Additional funding came from Filmförderungsanstalt (FFA, Berlin); Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg GmbH (MBB, Potsdam); Mitteldeutsche Medienförderung GmbH (MDM, Leipzig); and Filmfonds Babelsberg (ILB, Potsdam-Babelsberg).

Al-Mansour's screenplay was influenced by neorealist cinema like Vittorio De Sica's Bicycle Thieves, Jafar Panahi's Offside or Rosetta. The final scene recalls the final scene of François Truffaut's The 400 Blows. Al-Mansour says that the original version of her screenplay was much bleaker than the finished product: "I decided I didn't want the film to carry a slogan and scream, but just to create a story where people can laugh and cry a little." Al-Mansour based the character of Wadjda on one of her nieces and also on her own experiences when growing up. The main themes of the story are freedom, as represented by the bicycle, and the fear of emotional abandonment, as Wadjda's father wants to take a second wife who will provide him with a son.

Wadjda was filmed on the streets of Riyadh, which often made it necessary for the director to work from the back of a van, as she could not publicly mix with the men in the crew. Often, she could only communicate via walkie-talkie and had to watch the actors on a monitor. This made it difficult to direct: "It made me realise the need to rehearse and to develop an understanding for each scene before we shot it."

Waad Mohammed, who plays Wadjda, was a first-time actress.

Reception

Wadjda received critical acclaim. The film-critics aggregate Rotten Tomatoes reported 99% of critics gave the film a positive review based on 102 reviews, with an average score of 8/10. The critical consensus is: "Transgressive in the best possible way, Wadjda presents a startlingly assured new voice from a corner of the globe where cinema has been all but silenced." Metacritic, which assigns a standardized score out of 100, rated the film 81 based on 26 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim".

Release

The film premiered at the Venice Film Festival in August 2012. It was released in Germany by Koch Media in 2013. Other distributors are: Pretty Pictures (France, theatrical), Sony Pictures Classics (USA, theatrical), Wild Bunch Benelux (Netherlands, theatrical), The Match Factory (Non-USA, all media) and Soda Pictures (UK, all media). It has been shown at several film festivals:

Other screenings include as the opening film of the 6th Gulf Film Festival in Dubai (11–17 April) and at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York (21/25 April). The film was scheduled to be released on DVD in February 2014.