Production
Which actress who portrayed Wadjda was also a first time actress?
Wadjda
According to the director Haifaa al-Mansour, it took five years to make "Wadjda". Most of the time was spent 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 was very interested in finding 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 being chosen 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 (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.