In an audacious new film, a young woman secretly documents her preparations for escape from an arranged marriage on her smartphone
![Saudi Runaway: behind a suspenseful and courageous documentary](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/e60f244beb2807e351e7e4da614e0175d657377b/118_0_1731_1040/master/1731.jpg?width=1200&height=630&quality=85&auto=format&fit=crop&overlay-align=bottom%2Cleft&overlay-width=100p&overlay-base64=L2ltZy9zdGF0aWMvb3ZlcmxheXMvdGctZGVmYXVsdC5wbmc&enable=upscale&s=998155d7bc2afb7152a9afc91a435d4e)
The first time Muna, the protagonist of documentary Saudi Runaway, turns the camera on herself, you can’t see her face; she’s shrouded by black cloth, the typical
fashion for a woman’s public outing in
Saudi Arabia, a country which maintains, according to
Human Rights Watch, a stance of unrelenting oppression. When she holds her phone up for what would be the social media standard mirror selfie, her reflection is doubly obscured – both her entire body and her phone are under wraps. Muna films surreptitiously, either from under her niqab, in public, or posing as a typical phone-obsessed millennial at home. The videos make her case: faced with an impending arranged marriage and a life constrained by Saudi Arabia’s male guardianship system, she plans to flee the country on her honeymoon.
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