Saudi Runaway: Smartphone Shot Film Bought by National Geographic
A film shot on 2 smartphones has been bought by the company National Geographic Documentary Films. The deal was done at this year’s Berlin Film Festival (Berlinale).
“Using her smartphone camera, a young woman invites us into her world and her life behind closed doors, a veil and the façade of a respectable family. Muna’s life is determined by her father and a much-mentioned future husband. Realising that her passport is about to expire and that neither of these men will agree to an extension, she plots her escape from Saudi Arabia.”
The story behind the making of the documentary is an interesting one.
Saudi Runaway
The subject of the film, Muna, filmed the story herself from April to June 2019, using two smartphones, sometimes assisted by director Susanne Regina Meures. The smartphones were used as mostly hidden cameras.
The filmmaker (Swiss) spoke to the Muna via a chat group for women who are trying to leave Saudi Arabia. Then, after teaching Muna the basics of filming, Meures communicated with her while the shooting took place. Meures and producer-editor Christian Frei (Raving Iran, 2016) crafted the resulting footage into a film that documents her claustrophobic existence and subsequent flight to freedom. The result is a view inside Saudi Arabia’s patriarchal culture.
The film has played at over 130 festivals, including Sundance, and received a standing ovation when screened at Berlin.
“I placed a post in the chat group, looking for girls/women who were planning on escaping in the near future. My hope was to find someone who would be willing to document their everyday life and their planned escape with their mobile phones.” Meures
Meures says many young women told her very similar stories of their “horrifying day to day life”. These stories included domestic violence, sexual abuse, imprisonment in their own homes, and the constant requirement to get the consent of their male guardian.
Making of like a thriller itself
Meures spoke to Variety magazine about the subterfuge which went on during filming: “Muna had five weeks left until her planned escape, so we had a pretty tight deadline. She meticulously and authentically started to film her life as well as her secret escape plan from day number one. We were in touch every day, she sent me her footage and we chatted for about 5-6 hours to discuss technique, form and content. I didn’t give her specific guidelines but reacted to the clips she sent me. She uploaded the high res files onto Dropbox and deleted them straight away on her phone.”
This is the kind of filmmaking you can only do with a smartphone and the internet. Well, perhaps you could use other cameras but certainly the smartphone makes this technique far simpler.
The film is a “behind the facade” tale, one which doesn’t so much reveal the truth as confirm it. Her younger brother is regularly beaten by his father and implores Muna to call the police. And of course, as with all documentaries, the editing is where the story is truly made. Although I haven’t yet seen it, reviews point to the use of traditional horror and thriller techniques which add further impact to the reveals.
Using a smartphone as a smartphone
Smartphones are the perfect camera for this kind of intimate filmmaking. Like Home Stream (screening at this year’s MoMo Film Fest in Zurich), the camera is put into the hands of the subject of the film. The anonymity of the smartphone (everyone has one) means filming can unobtrusive (and even secret).
Also, the fact smartphones are designed to be used by ordinary folks means ordinary folks can shoot diary-style films with them. So, while it’s fun to try to get the most polished professional footage from a smartphone camera, their real strength shouldn’t be forgotten.
Other MoMo films this year have used the video diary style of filmmaking. January 18, 2022 was acted and filmed by the only actor in the story, about a “mysterious event”. While Throwback89 was made by professional filmmakers, but in the style of a self-shot Instagram story.
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