When Saudi director Shahad Ameen’s new film Hijra was screened at Red Sea International Film Festival in Jeddah this week, it felt similar to playing a football match at home.
“I am from Jeddah, so this is my territory,” Ameen says. “And it’s the hometown of all of my main actors.” The Saudi premiere became a riotous celebration, filled with friends and family. “It was like a private screening,” she adds with a laugh.
The intimacy suited a film so rooted in family. Hijra follows Sitti (Khairiah Nathmy), a grandmother on a pilgrimage to Makkah with her two granddaughters. Before long, Sarah (Raghad Bokhari) disappears, forcing Sitti and the younger granddaughter, Janna (Lamar Faden), to abandon their spiritual journey and search for the missing girl.
The film, which had its premiere at Venice Film Festival and has been selected as Saudi Arabia’s Oscar submission for Best International Feature, traces a road trip through some of the kingdom’s most striking landscapes, including Taif, Jeddah, Madinah and Neom. After winning the Netpac Award for Best Asian Film in Venice, Hijra is set for a mid-January release in the UAE.
Ameen notes that Hijra is the first Saudi film to receive support from all five major national funding bodies, including the Saudi Film Commission, the Red Sea Fund and Film AlUla. How audiences across the region respond will be closely watched, not least because the film treats traditional Muslim values with deep respect. Hajj – the pilgrimage to Makkah undertaken by all Muslims who are able – sits at the story’s core.
“This is indeed a pillar of Islam,” says Nathmy. “It might be known to the rest of the world, but it is a very important ritual for us. I wanted to show that, and emphasise how meaningful it is to Muslims and to me, especially for Sitti. She couldn’t take part in the pilgrimage that year because of her missing granddaughter, and it was a source of tremendous pain.”
Sitting side by side in emerald-coloured gowns, Ameen and Nathmy appear worlds apart in age yet perfectly in sync. Ameen speaks often of the admiration she holds for older generations. “I look at my grandmother and my mother, and I wish I could be like that … they’re just so resilient,” she says. “That’s what I wanted to learn from Sitti – her resilience.”
Ameen also wanted Hijra to challenge external assumptions about Saudi women. “It bothers me when there’s this assumption that because some women are religious or wear the niqab, it means they’re weak,” she says. “It’s such a backward way of thinking … we have leading scientists, leading doctors, incredible females, who cover their faces.”
What animates the film is the friction between generations. Sitti’s firm beliefs leave little room for the different paths younger women might choose. That becomes clear when she and Janna visit an aunt working as a beauty therapist – a woman Sitti believes has influenced Sarah’s disappearance.
For Nathmy, the film offers a pointed reflection on the dangers of widening divides. Older generations, she argues, must approach younger people with love, compassion and care. “They shouldn’t rely on force and discipline,” she says. “If they do, they won’t get any results, and it won’t be good for the younger generation or for society.”
Ameen – whose debut Scales (2019) presented a stark feminist parable – also sees Hijra as a meditation on migration. “Since the dawn of Islam, people have immigrated to Makkah and Madinah,” she says. “A lot of families in the kingdom are like that. My great-great-grandfather immigrated from somewhere in China.”
In Hijra, nearly every character is seeking a place to settle. “We learn that Sitti had immigrated before. We learn that maybe Sarah is planning to immigrate,” Ameen says. Even Ahmed (Nawaf Al Dhufairi), the driver who helps them search, longs to leave. “In reality, everyone in this film is searching for a home.”
Nathmy, whose own family came from India, says the “history of the migration movement” has long shaped Saudi society but is seldom discussed. “People came because they were persecuted in their countries, or their religion was persecuted. Or they came because they loved this place and its holy sites,” she says. “We have beautiful people, with different origins.”
