Imagine being a female filmmaker in a country where movie theaters are banned and where women are not allowed to drive, hold certain jobs or, in most cases, appear in public without a male escort.
Haifaa Al-Mansour dared to dream just that, and has accomplished the nearly impossible. The director shot an entire feature-length film inside the conservative confines of Saudi Arabia — becoming the first woman to do so — and, in the process, has created a movie that’s earning considerable buzz and praise around the world.
“I feel so proud that I’m contributing to making Saudi more tolerant and more open, and bringing art into the kingdom,” Al-Mansour tells The Post.
Her movie, “Wadjda,” opened Friday in NYC and focuses on a rebellious young Saudi girl (Waad Mohammed) who attempts to win her school’s Koran recitation contest in order to buy a bike — something girls are forbidden to ride in the kingdom.
(Since the movie was shot, the law has been relaxed to allow females to bike, but only in recreational areas, while wearing a full-length abaya and with a male relative present.)
Saudi Arabia’s conservative culture made shooting the film problematic, in part because women and men are not allowed to mix in public. For outdoor scenes, Al- Mansour was forced to hide inside a van, watching monitors and barking orders to her male crew over walkie-talkie.
Even finding actors was difficult: Saudi Arabia has no casting agencies, so Al-Mansour relied on word of mouth to find her cast.
“We were panicking, because we saw a lot of good girls, but then their parents wouldn’t let them,” Al-Mansour says. “Then, Waad Mohammed came in, and she was listening to Justin Bieber.”
Now, the little girl, who was 10 years old when “Wadjda” was shot, is a star in her Saudi school and hopes to continue acting.
While the movie premiered at last year’s Venice Film Festival, finding a place to show it in the kingdom proved difficult. Cinemas in Saudi Arabia are seen as impure and are banned. The director arranged a few screenings of “Wadjda” at various culture centers instead, and the reaction was mostly positive.
Al-Mansour, 39, grew up in Saudi Arabia but now lives in Bahrain with her husband (an American diplomat) and two children. As a girl, Al-Mansour watched American movies on VHS at home and fell in love with Hollywood productions, especially “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.” Her family was traditional but supported her dream of becoming a filmmaker.
“I never thought that there were things I could not do because I am a girl,” she says. “I think lots of girls in Saudi don’t even dream because they know nothing can happen. Having a safe space at home made me feel that one day, something could happen.”
In her late 20s, Al-Mansour began making low-budget shorts with her siblings as crew. “My father used to get a lot of letters from our extended family — who were more conservative and religious — saying, ‘How could you let your daughter do these things that are bad? You are an honorable man and you have to control her,’ ” Al-Mansour says. “My father never cared, but a lot of men would, because Saudi is very tribal.”
“Wadjda” has, not surprisingly, earned criticism from conservatives inside Saudi Arabia.
“There are a lot of people who aren’t happy. But on the other hand, there are people who are very supportive,” the director says. “When I first started making films, there was more opposition. Things now are becoming more tolerant.”