‘A spoonful of sugar’ you may call it but the first ever female directed movie entirely shot in Saudi Arabia Wadjda posed a great question to the conservative society of Saudi Arabia, whether women should be secluded inside their houses or not. Wadjda a 10 year old girl living in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia signs on for her school's Quran recitation competition as a way to raise the remaining funds she needs in order to buy the green bicycle that has captured her interest so that she can race with her school friend Abdullah. This simple context becomes extraordinarily complex when you will find that the country is run by Sharia Law, women cannot drive their own car, women have to sit in a different section of a restaurant, and women are escorted to the shopping malls, houses or any events by their father, brother or husbands!

Director Haifaa Al Mansour was forced to shot the film often hiding from a covered van, empty road, shouting through a walkie talkie from 50-60 feet away from the shooting spot so that she did not get caught by the Saudi Sharia Police. As Saudi Arabia has no cinema theatre and ban on cinemas, it is quite a challenge for the director to fight the Saudi censorship and release the movie inside the country to break the age old religious shackles, tradition for the women as well as the male attitude towards them. Being an Oscar nominated film, Wadjda represents such an unfamiliar society where no woman has ever made it to the family tree diagram but yet the film gives magnanimous points about women’s independence, rights for women, boy-girl friendship and encourages them to participate in pursuing their dreams no matter what might the consequences be.

Every film that has been made in middle-east somehow portrays women in a vulnerable or depressed situation except this one may be. The so human side of the film poses cultural dilemma beside gender