Wadjda

Wadjda (2012) is Haifaa al-Mansour's drama, and you can watch online on iFILM. A ten-year-old girl in suburban Riyadh wants one thing: a green bicycle, so she can finally beat the neighborhood boy in a race. In the Saudi Arabia of the time, girls aren't meant to ride bikes at all — and that's only the first rule Wadjda intends to bend.

Wadjda (Waad Mohammed) braids bracelets, resells trinkets and saves her riyals, but the bike stays out of reach. So she enters her school's Quran recitation contest, which comes with a cash prize. Her mother (Reem Abdullah) frets that her husband may take a second wife, while the school's stern headmistress keeps a sharp eye on every girl in her halls.

This was the first feature shot entirely inside Saudi Arabia, and the first directed by a Saudi woman — a quiet revolution in itself. Al-Mansour skips the speeches; one stubborn kid's determination says more than any slogan could. Sly, gentle and genuinely warm. Stream Wadjda (2012) online on iFILM.