UNIDENTIFIED

This week, we’re joined by pioneering Saudi filmmaker Haifaa Al Mansour for a conversation about her new film, UNIDENTIFIED — a tense and haunting mystery thriller set within the hidden world of modern Saudi women.

At the center of the film is Noelle Al Saffan, a recently divorced woman beginning a new life in the city. Working a clerical job in a police station, she becomes drawn into the case of a teenage girl whose body is discovered in the desert — unidentified, unclaimed, and almost erased.

What begins as a search for the girl’s name becomes something deeper: a story about identity, shame, silence, and the expectations placed on women in a society determined to keep certain truths out of sight.

Haifaa Al Mansour, the first female filmmaker from Saudi Arabia and the director of Wadjda and The Perfect Candidate, describes UNIDENTIFIED as the completion of her Saudi trilogy — films centered on women who step outside the roles assigned to them and challenge the systems built around them.

In our conversation, we talk with Haifaa Al Mansour about crafting a thriller that is both gripping and deeply personal, the evolution of Saudi cinema, and the complicated, contradictory women at the heart of her work.

Listen to our conversation with Haifaa Al Mansour about UNIDENTIFIED on INSIDE THE ARTHOUSE.

Twenty-nine year old Noelle Al Saffan moves to the city to start a new life after her divorce. She’s obsessed with “true crime” podcasts and takes a clerical job in a police station digitizing their old files. The work is mundane but, everything changes when a teenage girl’s body is discovered in the desert. The officers need a female present when they investigate the body, and Noelle jumps at the chance to participate in police work outside of the copy room. With no clues to who the girl was or where she came from, and no missing persons’ report filed, it seems that the victim’s family is ashamed of the circumstances surrounding her death and don’t want their personal issues aired in public.



Noelle is haunted by the girl’s senseless and mysterious death, and despite her lack of a badge or any authority to do so, she launches her own investigation to identify the victim and solve her murder. Using her knowledge about the hidden world of Saudi women, she pieces together a picture of who the girl was. She befriends a group of young women who seem to have inside information on the case and, following the advice of her favorite podcast, investigates everyone who might be connected to the crime. Despite repeated warnings from the Police Chief to stay off the case, Noelle doggedly pursues the mystery, putting herself in danger and challenging her preconceived notions about women in the Kingdom, the threats they face, and even the motivations that connect her to the victim.