Wadjda, being touted as the first feature film shot entirely in Saudi Arabia — a country with no movie theaters and a relationship with cinema that's complicated at best — tells the story of a defiant 10-year-old pushing back against the social expectations that define her life as a young Saudi woman.
Wadjda's source of independence comes in the form of a green bicycle she wants to buy for herself. But girls in Saudi Arabia don't ride bicycles, so she has to be creative.
Director Haifaa Al Mansour tells NPR's Rachel Martin that she wanted to make a film "that mirrors reality as much as possible."
"I couldn't make a film where women are all innocent and they're all striving to be free and all that; it's not real," she says. "I think a lot of women are the gatekeepers, a lot of women reinforce the values ... For me, it was not making women all the victims, and men are the oppressors."