On Wednesday 15th April 2020, Birds’ Eye View Director-at-large Mia Bays and multi-award winning producer Uzma Hasan will be in conversation with the trailblazing director Haifaa Al Mansour discussing her latest film THE PERFECT CANDIDATE (with thanks to Modern Films), this is a film we were planning to champion in cinemas before its release was cut short in March.
★★★★
“Groundbreaking…powerful parable of feminism at the sharp end”
Time Out
Maryam is an ambitious young doctor working in a small town clinic in Saudi Arabia. Despite her qualifications, she has to earn the respect of male colleagues and acceptance from her patients every day. After Maryam is prevented from traveling to Dubai in search of a better job, a bureaucratic mix up leads her to stumble on the application for her local city elections and she decides to run.
With her musician father away on tour playing the first public concerts allowed in the Kingdom in decades, Maryam enlists her two younger sisters to begin fundraising and planning campaign events. While they face the restriction of women’s traditional roles in the Kingdom at every turn, Maryam’s audacious candidacy starts to build momentum and challenges her conservative community. A tight race emerges between Maryam and her male opponent, as Maryam and her family mobilize their determination and creativity to move their traditional society forward.
You can catch the film now on BFI Player, Curzon Home Cinema and Great Modern Things.
Great Modern Things is Modern Films own Video on Demand platform, if you watch the film with them you also have an opportunity to donate to your local independent cinema, we’d urge you to support them during this difficult time – you can find out more here.
Watch the film between now and next week and then catch our discussion with Haifaa on Crowd Cast on on Wednesday 15 April from 6.00pm link below:
