SAUDIA Arabia’s first female filmmaker – who was forced to direct her debut from inside a van – hopes her success will blaze a trail for her compatriots to follow, writes Nan Spowart.
Haifaa Al-Mansour’s first film, Wadjda, won a Bafta nomination even though she was banned from directing her cast and crew in public and did so remotely.
“I watched it on screens and they gave me a walkie talkie,” she said. “Everybody else is outside and if the frame is not right, I talk to the DP (director of photography) and we have to be on the phone for an hour, it was like remote controlling.”
She said that when she first attempted to enter the film industry even some of her extended family were not supportive. “My parents and my sisters were really proud but Saudis have very big families, so they call me and say ‘Don’t say you are related, don’t say the family name’.
“It was very shameful for a woman to be in a public space, or just to appear on TV. It is immodest, women should be completely covered, they should not take positions like this, you should be always at home raising the children.
“But now it’s totally changed, people are very proud, and there is more appreciation for art in general.”
Al-Mansour has gone on to direct her first Western film, about Frankenstein author Mary Shelley, which is now showing in the UK.
However, she said the industry still had a way to go to offer equal opportunities.
“For diverse women and women of colour, of course it is harder. I just don’t fulfil the image they have in their subconscious of what is a director, or how a director looks.
“It is hard, and especially hard if you are a woman, and if you are a woman of colour it’s just like you have so much, so much more to prove and a woman with an accent like me, that’s even more. But it is changing. There is more acceptance and there is a crack.
“It is still a struggle and you have to reinvest into yourself and work hard but there is hope and there are opportunities if you fight for them.”
Al-Mansour feels a close connection with Shelley, who is played by Elle Fanning, as a result. “She goes to a publisher and they’re like no way, we don’t want your name on it. For me, coming from Saudi Arabia, I understand that it hurts when you are creatively dismissed and taken for granted just because of your gender.”
“I just feel like it is really sad. However, I feel that we are living in a feminist reawakening.
“With the Me Too movement and Time’s Up, I think it’s very important to create, first of all, a safe place for a woman to work without being harassed, and also without being pigeonholed in a certain kind of work.”
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