A 10-year-old girl longs for a bicycle. It sounds simple, but the law in her country forbids her from riding this vehicle. She decides to trample on the law, to mock the adults, to deflect the principal of the school from her path. She is even willing never to become pregnant because that is the punishment visited on any girl riding a bicycle, a punishment from the Heavens, according to what she is told. Holy religious personages are grotesque in her eyes, but when she gets the opportunity to exploit the Quran to collect more money for her supreme goal, she does not hesitate to take advantage of it.
Will this girl succeed in realizing her dream? Her campaign for the yearned-for moment is the hub of the plot of the Saudi film Wadjda that arouses much interest around the world. The movie also reached Israel, but in contrast to isolated works from the Arab cinema that are screened here every few years, Wadjda was played in the large movie houses, accompanied by an aggressive public relations campaign.
