Saudi Arabia to make its debut at Cannes with 'Norah'

On its way to Cannes, Norah won the Daw Competition's Best Screenplay Award, and at the end of 2023, it won Best Saudi Film at the Red Sea International Film Festival.

The production evolved through a partnership between Tawfiq
Al-Zaidi and American producer Paul Miller, alongside Jordanian producer Sharif Al-Majali, in collaboration with two Saudi production companies.

Norah extends its director's filmmaking journey, which began in 2006 with Together for Peace. Al-Zaidi moved into short films with the documentary The Perfect Crime, which won an award for best editing at the Jeddah Film Festival.

His subsequent films, The Silence and Exit, both made in 2011, received significant recognition within the Arab film community.

Setting the backdrop

As the idea for Norah took shape, Al-Zaidi returned to his homeland in Medina to bring the story to life. He broke new ground by choosing to film in the historic city of AlUla—the striking backdrop replacing an elaborate set.

That was integral to its evocative and authentic depiction of the 1990s, the decade when the film is set.

The film offers a realistic portrayal of life in Saudi Arabia in the 1990s, a decade of hardship, and the complex relationship between art and the desert. It examines life's spatial, educational, cultural, and emotional dimensions outside the cities, where artists are outcasts.

Art is personified by Nader, played by Yaqoub Alfarhan, who heads to the desert with the quiet wisdom of a sage and the disillusionment of a dreamer, while Norah personifies the desert, played by Maria Bahrawi.

Themes and connections

The film is the story of their encounters and their contrasting worlds. The forces that shaped Nader have led to individualism, introspection, frustration, and reticence.  

Norah is the opposite. She longs for city life and is drawn to the glamourous world of art, which she explores in its diverse forms, including painting, music, and cinema. This forms one of the film's central themes, the other being the intellectual and existential void in the characters' lives.

The connection between these two themes is fragile. It contains the potential for unfulfilled love and suppressed emotions.

Norah has won plaudits for its beautiful narrative and finesse of artistic execution, but some felt the film lacked character development.

Pioneers of progress

Nonetheless, critics have hailed Norah as pioneering for the Saudi film industry and its exploration of traditional beliefs and contemporary progress.

The way the story follows a girl born into challenging circumstances and tackles the ways to transcend those conditions is noteworthy in itself.

It handles these delicate themes with depth, which boosts its chances of nabbing an award at other prominent film festivals, similar to Wadjda directed by Haifaa Al-Mansour.

Although set in 1996, Norah is profoundly contemporary, reflecting Al-Zaidi's personal struggles and intellectual journey. It is accompanied by a first-rate soundtrack and uses innovative filming techniques.

The film's inclusion in the Cannes roster shows how new Saudi filmmakers can flourish in the industry.

Norah may be the first Saudi film to be shown before the famous panel of judges in the French Riviera, but it's unlikely to be the last.