Director Susanne Regina Maures on ‘Saudi Runaway’

BERLIN — Robert Montgomery’s “Woman within the Lake” posed the query of whether or not it’s attainable to make an entire movie from one POV and but create a real emotional reference to an viewers if it doesn’t have a face to attach with. “Saudi Runaway” delivers a haunting POV expertise by way of the fingers of a girl, a lot of the instances hidden behind a burka, and her willingness to document together with her cellphone the state of affairs that hundreds of different ladies dwell in Saudi Arabia.

That is the story of Muna, a younger designer, whose life has been managed and decided by a state that offers only a few rights to ladies. When pressured into an organized marriage, she decides to flee. Utilizing her cellphone as testimony of an archaic and violent patriarchy, Muna and director Susanne Regina Meures create an intuitive and immensely emotional documentary.

Produced by Christian Frei Filmproductions in co-production with Kiosk Worldwide and Schweizer Radio und Fernsehen, “Saudi Runaway’s” world gross sales are dealt with by Rise and Shine. Selection talked with Maures the movie bowed in Berlinale’s Panorama.

How did this venture begin? How did you get involved with Muna?

Originally of 2019, a brand new wave of “Saudi Runaways” hit the worldwide media. A number of youngsters and younger ladies fled the Kingdom beneath dramatic circumstances. Some had been profitable, however many failed and confronted unthinkable penalties.

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I had been planning on filming in Saudi Arabia for fairly some time. However each time I utilized for a visa, it received rejected. In April 2019 I received in contact with a Saudi activist in Europe who additionally runs a weblog and a closed chat group supporting ladies who’re attempting to depart the Kingdom. I positioned a submit within the chat group, searching for ladies/ladies who had been planning on escaping within the close to future. My hope was to search out somebody who could be keen to doc their on a regular basis life and their deliberate escape with their cell phones. Somebody who would have the ability to give us a private perception view right into a hidden world. Many younger ladies received in contact and advised me time and again very related tales of their horrifying everyday life. Home violence, typically sexual abuse, imprisonment in their very own properties, no freedom to decide on or resolve something with out the consent of their male guardian. I may really feel their nice urge to share their tales however most ladies had been too afraid to take part in a movie. Then, sooner or later, Muna received in contact. She was adamant that the world “must see what’s going on” and began filming the identical day.

Throughout the interval the place Muna was taking pictures how had been the dynamics between her and also you? What pointers did you gave her?

Muna had 5 weeks left till her deliberate escape, so we had a fairly tight deadline. She meticulously and authentically began to movie her life in addition to her secret escape plan from day primary. We had been in contact daily, she despatched me her footage and we chatted for about 5-6 hours to debate approach, kind and content material. I didn’t give her particular pointers however reacted to the clips she despatched me. She uploaded the excessive res information onto Dropbox and deleted them right away on her cellphone.

The movie is an achievement not solely relating to Muna’s will to document however how her story was edited, vwhich is vaguely harking back to Bresson’s “A Man Escaped,” the documentary manages to have thriller and virtually horror movie beats in the way in which it shows the circumstances of ladies in Saudi Arabia. What was the enhancing course of? What had been your pointers?

As soon as Muna was secure and I had gathered all of the footage, I employed about 20 translators to translate all the fabric. I don’t converse Arabic, so all of the spoken content material was additionally new to me.

However the storyline was fairly clear from the beginning, so me and my editor had been very quick and completed the movie in lower than three months. However the footage wasn’t straightforward to deal with, the images had been typically shaky and the content material fragmented. We needed to flip the cell phone clips right into a flowing movie, which might even be readable for the Western viewers. Throughout taking pictures, Muna and I chatted virtually repeatedly for 5 weeks, which amounted to about 700 written pages. These phrases served as the idea for the voice-over and in addition as a framework to contextualize the photographs.

Your second characteristic feels very very similar to a follow-up to your debut, “Raving Iran.” What attracts you to those tales?

One of many issues that actually attracts me to repressive methods, repressive regimes particularly with regard to youthful generations, is to see how they’re coping with their actuality. Everyone seems to be utilizing social media, by way of it they dwell in a really comparative world, they’re very conscious, being from a younger era in Iran or Saudi Arabia, they’re very conscious of the place they’re. It creates friction and a variety of frustration.

There’s a query that each documentary filmmaker and even anthropologist should confront which is the way to strategy the fabric and the idiosyncrasies of a society, being an outsider.

I did a variety of analysis, I spoke to lots of people, and I knew it will be laborious for me to get to the place, actually, and the place the place I knew I’d discover the story I needed to inform. That can be one of many explanation why I gave the digital camera to her, as a result of I actually needed to inform the story from its most internal core. On the similar time, I don’t consider on this colonial considering that international filmmakers shouldn’t be doing movies about different nations. There’s typically a beautiful readability to a well-researched view from the surface. Speaking once more about social media, I additionally really feel that I can relate fairly effectively to the younger, very westernized era within the Center East.

About The Authors

Hilda Workman - Hilda Workman is a licensed financial advisor with years of expertise in the industry. She has assisted a range of clients, from sole proprietors to large corporations, in reaching their financial objectives. She is informed about many different financial subjects, including tax preparation, investment planning and also in fashion. She believes that the best things are those that are imperfect.