Haifaa al-Mansour | |
|---|---|
 Haifaa Al-Mansour on the Green Carpet at the 2025 Zurich Film Festival. | |
| Born | (1974-08-10)10 August 1974 (age 51) |
| Alma mater | |
| Occupations | Director, producer, screenwriter |
| Years active | 1997–present |
| Spouse | Bradley Niemann |
| Children | 2 |
Haifaa al-Mansour (Arabic:هيفاء المنصورHayfā'a al-Manṣūr; born 10 August 1974) is aSaudi Arabian film director. She is one of the country's best-known and one of the first female Saudi filmmakers.[1][2]
Haifaa is the eighth (out of twelve)[3] children of the poet Abdul Rahman Mansour, who introduced her to films by video, there being no movie theaters in Saudi Arabia between 1983 and 2018.[4] One of her favorite actors wasJackie Chan.[5] She is fromAl Zulfi but grew up inAl-Hasa.[6] Although her town was conservative, her father would go to a Blockbuster and grab any films that were available and bring them back home for their large family to enjoy together. Since cinema was banned in Saudi Arabia, Haifaa and her family received lots of judgment and threats from the people in her conservative town, but this never stopped her father from raising her and the other children to do things they felt passionate about. Although she grew up in a liberal family with non-traditional parents, her mother still had expectations for Haifaa to have a prestigious career. Her mother really wanted her to become a doctor, but that did not work out for Haifaa. She also tried becoming an engineer, but that also did not happen.
With her father's encouragement, she studied comparative literature atThe American University in Cairo.[4] After school, Haifaa worked at an oil company and taught English, she later completed a master's degree in Film Studies fromUniversity of Sydney, Australia.[3][7]
She began her filmmaking career with threeshorts,Who?,The Bitter Journey, andThe Only Way Out.The Only Way Out won prizes in the United Arab Emirates and in the Netherlands.[8] She followed these with the documentaryWomen Without Shadows, which deals with the hidden lives of women inArab States of the Persian Gulf. It was shown at 17 international festivals. The film received the Golden Dagger for Best Documentary in theMuscat Film Festival and a special jury mention in the fourthArab Film Festival inRotterdam. Haifaa al-Mansour was a guest at the 28thThree Continents Festival inNantes, France.[1]
Her feature debut,Wadjda, which she wrote as well as directed (and which is considered her break-out film[9]) made its world premiere at the2012 Venice Film Festival; it is the first full-length feature to be shot entirely in Saudi Arabia[2][10][11][12] and as of 2013, the only feature-length film made in Saudi Arabia by a female director.[3]Wadjda tells the story of a 10-year-old girl growing up in the suburbs ofRiyadh, who dreams of owning and riding a green bicycle.[13]Wadjda took five years to be made because of the typical constraints and challenges Haifaa went through to have the film released. The segregation of men and women in Saudi Arabia forced her to direct it in a small van with only a monitor and awalkie-talkie to communicate orders. Al-Mansour stated it was a very difficult and frustrating experience, but the most important thing to her was that she was the first female Saudi Arabian filmmaker who created the first feature film, fully filmed in Saudi Arabia. The film was backed byRotana, the film production company ofPrince Al-Waleed bin Talal.[3]Wadjda was selected as the Saudi Arabian entry for theBest Foreign Language Film at the86th Academy Awards, which is the first time Saudi Arabia has submitted a film for the Best Foreign Language Oscar.[14][15][16][17] The project had been developed in 2009 during the Gulf screenwriting lab, a collaboration betweenTorinoFilmLab andDubai International Film Festival. Seven years later, she made her fourth feature film,The Perfect Candidate, in 2019 which was the first feature film to be supported by the newly established national Saudi Film Council.
She did not intend that her film work focus on women's issues, but found them too important to not address. BothWho? andWomen Without Shadows deal with the custom ofabaya. She has receivedhate mail and criticism for being unreligious, which she denies. She does, however, feel that Saudi Arabia needs to take a more critical view of its culture.[4] She also received praise from Saudis for encouraging discussion on topics usually consideredtaboo.[8] Al-Mansour often creates films about strong, independent, and resilient women, inspired from her own experiences. She has a supportive family, but those that surrounded her maintained the conservative politics in that town and condemned her for seeking film, using the argument that it is haram (forbidden inIslam),[citation needed] although the claim is controversial and not agreed upon by the majority ofMuslims. Regardless, she continued making films about women who wanted to change the way women in Saudi Arabia are perceived and what they are allowed to do.
In 2014, it was reported that Al-Mansour was to directA Storm in the Stars, an upcoming romantic drama film about the early life of writerMary Shelley.[18] The film was later retitledMary Shelley[19] and premiered at the2017 Toronto International Film Festival.[20]
Al-Mansour next announced she was on board to directNappily Ever After, an adaptation of the book of the same name by Trisha R. Thomas.[21]
She was selected to be on the jury for theUn Certain Regard section of the2015 Cannes Film Festival.[22]
In January 2019, Al-Mansour "received a Crystal Award at theWorld Economic Forum's 2019 meeting inDavos for her leadership in cultural transformation in theArab world."[23]
In April 2020, it was announced that she would direct Netflix's upcoming filmThe Selection, based on the first entry in Kiera Cass' popular book series.[24] The film was later scrapped.[25]
In 2020, she directed an episode onThe Good Lord Bird.[26]
Al-Mansour lived inBahrain for some years, and eventually moved toCalifornia with her husband, Bradley Niemann, an American diplomat, and their two children, Adam and Haylie.[3][27]
| Year | English Title | Original title | Director | Writer | Producer |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2012 | Wadjda | وجدة | Yes | Yes | No |
| 2017 | Mary Shelley | Yes | Uncredited | No | |
| 2018 | Nappily Ever After | Yes | No | No | |
| 2019 | The Perfect Candidate | المرشحة المثالية | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| 2025 | Unidentified | Yes | Yes | N/a | |
| Year | Title | Director | Writer |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1997 | Who? (من؟) | Yes | Yes |
| 2000 | The Bitter Journey (الرحيل المر) | Yes | Yes |
| 2001 | The Only Way Out (أنا والآخر) | Yes | No |
| 2018 | The Wedding Singer's Daughter | Yes | Yes |
| Year | Title | Episode(s) |
|---|---|---|
| 2019 | The Society | "Putting on the Clothes" |
| 2020 | Motherland: Fort Salem | "Hail Beltane" |
| The Good Lord Bird | "Hiving the Bees" | |
| The Wilds | "Day Seven" | |
| 2021 | The L Word: Generation Q | "Launch Party" |
| "Last Dance" | ||
| The Sinner | "Part V" | |
| 2022 | Archive 81 | "Through the Looking Glass" |
| "The Circle" | ||
| Tales of the Walking Dead | "Amy / Dr. Everett" | |
| 2023 | Mayfair Witches | "The Thrall" |
| "Transference" | ||
| Florida Man | "One More Day" | |
| "Please, Don't Wake Up" | ||
| City on Fire | "The Family Business" | |
| "Land of a Thousand Dances" | ||
| Bosch: Legacy | "Seventy-Four Degrees in Belize" | |
| Fear the Walking Dead | "Fighting Like You" |
