PARIS, Aug 6, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – Fresh from shooting her first film in
English, Haifaa al-Mansour plans to return to her native Saudi Arabia next
month for her new project — but this time, she won’t be directing out of
view by walkie-talkie from the back of a van.
“When I started making films — I started in 2005, when my first short
came out — people didn’t believe in cinema in Saudi Arabia — films were
illegal, the country was very segregated, so it was like ‘a woman making
films, oh!’,” the 43-year-old director told AFP in an interview.
“But Saudi Arabia has changed,” Mansour said.
Late last year Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman lifted a decades-old ban
on cinemas as part of his push to modernise the ultra-conservative country,
which included in June allowing women to drive.
Saudi Arabia this year made its first official appearance at the Cannes
film festival with its submission of a series of short films.
Mansour was the first woman to shoot a film in the country, the critically
acclaimed “Wadjda” from 2012 about a girl who dreams of riding her own bike.
During the filming, she often had to direct her team via walkie-talkie
while keeping out of sight in a van, since she could not be seen in public
alongside male actors and crew members.
“I don’t think I will be in the van anymore,” she said.
“Now we have a film fund and they are supporting my next project, which is
called ‘The Perfect Candidate’, about a young Saudi female doctor who decides
to run for an office in a municipal election,” she said.
“It will be wonderful to be part of the evolution of film in the country,”
she added.
“I think it’s amazing to have Saudi Arabia becoming normal again.”
– ‘Definitely a Haifaa film’ –
Mansour now lives in Los Angeles with her American husband and children.
“Mary Shelley”, her biopic of the 19th-century author of the horror classic
“Frankenstein”, is now hitting screens worldwide.
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley was just 18 when she travelled to Lake Geneva
in 1816 with her future husband, the poet Percy Shelley, and their son to
vacation alongside friends including Lord Byron.
Kept inside for days by heavy rains, they challenged each other to write a
ghost story, sparking the Gothic tale of “Frankenstein; or, The Modern
Prometheus”, which was eventually published in 1818, but without Mary
Shelley’s name on the cover.
“For her, to come and write something so original and not to have her name
on it, I could not not tell that story. I felt just like, ‘this is definitely
a Haifaa film’,” Mansour said.
The offer to direct the film, starring Elle Fanning, came as a surprise —
not least because Mansour had previously filmed mainly in Arabic.
But having studied literature at the American University in Cairo and film
at the University of Sydney, she was ready for the challenge of working in
English.
“We did a lot of rewriting on the script — it’s not only a love story,”
she said.
After filming the movie in Ireland, Luxembourg and France, Mansour said
she was eager to work again in her native Saudi Arabia.
“I think it is very important to make films there, especially with Saudi
Arabia embracing films and allowing film theatres. It will be wonderful to be
part of the evolution of film in the country,” she said.
“I think it will have a great impact on young professional women.”