JEDDAH, 10 May 2007 — Every Saturday evening Haifa Al-Mansour, the 33-year-old Saudi woman filmmaker, appears on the LBC satellite channel. She does not appear as a guest or even a director, rather Al-Mansour is host of a new weekly TV show called “More Than a Woman.”
The show, which aired its first episode two weeks ago, focuses entirely on sensitive issues and problems relating to Saudi women. The first two episodes of the show discussed Saudi women possibly participating in the Shoura Council and homosexuality among Saudi girls.
The program’s third episode is going to discuss “Saudi Women and Law” and will discuss the possibility of women joining the Kingdom’s judicial system and highlight the rising complaints by Saudi women of mistreatment by judges and whether their condition would become better if there was a Saudi woman judge.
Joining Al-Mansour on the discussion panel will be Khaled Al-Ghanami, a researcher of religion, and former judge Muhammad Al-Moshawah.
“We are trying to cover issues, which exist in society, but which people do not talk about. They are there though,” said Al-Mansour, adding that it is still too early to get a full picture of the reaction of Saudis to the show. Nevertheless, some people see the show as a “threat to their values.”
Although Al-Mansour has made three movies and acted in another short movie called “Taxi,” she said that facing the camera as a presenter is a difficult experience, adding that she is unhesitant to confess that she needs more experience “to keep the rhythm,” as she has not previously trained in broadcast journalism.
“I like being a serious presenter and one day I’d like to host political programs,” Al-Mansour said.
Geographical distances are no obstacles for Al-Mansour, who is going to get married this month to American diplomat Bradley Niemann at the American Consulate in Dhahran. By the end of the year she is going to live in Australia, where Niemann will move. “The show is filmed in Riyadh. I’m staying in Saudi Arabia till the end of the year so we have a further six months. Then we’ll see what’s going to happen next. I guess I can come every few months and film, if it works all right. But it’s LBC’s decision at the end,” she said.
A team of journalists selects topics for the program. “Saudi journalist Samar Al-Mogrin is very good in the field of investigative journalism and there is also Saad Al-Sakran. They know what’s going on in society and what is being discussed in newspapers,” she said.
Al-Mansour, who is an award winning filmmaker, said being a presenter would not force her away from her main passion of making films. “I don’t think TV will affect my film career. If we are lucky we can film one movie a year. That’s not a big load,” said the first Saudi filmmaker.
