Anhar Salem

Shot quickly in a break of film shooting

Streets of Jeddah.

A year has passed since the death of my mother and two of my sisters.

Docufiction set in Jeddah, starring Aws, Lily, and Mema, the three children take the lead and freely create their own horror story

A docu-fiction follows Doody (Badriah Ahmed) and Ansam Salem, Anhar’s niece and sister, who portray fictionalized versions of themselves as young women navigating contemporary Saudi society. Staged scenes of private moments, public appearances, and performances unfold as a cathartic journey from the real incident when Doody, after publishing a photo, faced mass bullying online and accusations from authorities. By blurring the boundaries between reality, the digital realm, and fiction, the film explores self-representation and survival. In the narrative, Doody repeatedly escapes into an avatar born from an Instagram filter, immersing herself in an alternate reality. This avatar becomes both a veil to break free from social conventions, reflecting the uncontrollable circulation of images today. The film stands as a poetic tribute with/to Doody, who passed away after its release, leaving her last words on the IG account @livingthefirelife_000zg.

Mashallah. Why Did You Cross The Indian Ocean? features interviews with two pairs of Indo-Hadhrami mothers and daughters living in Jeddah.The women routinely gather in Salem’s mother’s living room – a site of informal commerce through which women from the artist’s community would buy and sell various ethnic goods, crafts and food. These conversations unravel in a playful manner wherein the women share a meal and recount their experiences of migrating to Jeddah – navigating a new culture and supporting the economic, emotional, and physical wellbeing of their families, while implementing and preserving their matrilineal values and traditions.

Fatima, in the beginning of her twenties. She cooks, takes care of her child and does her everyday house cleaning. Gradually, her life begins to change, she worked as a cleaner, her husband abused her, she asked for help, and then escaped away to live in a social house. After escaping with the hope of having a better life, she is suddenly faced by another problem related to the status of her child. The director was shooting with an iPhone since meeting Fatima to make a semi-fiction movie. But instead, Anhar kept the footage and continued shooting with her personal phone for documenting Fatima's new dramatic changes more closely, in the sake of keeping the same relationship and distance. At the same time, the film tries to emphasize Fatima’s emotional/occasional status throughout the film by using more vivid images connected to her situation, places, and old memories as an ex-dancer back in Algeria.

A short documented visit to the ophthalmologist by Anhar Salem

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Two guitars is the 24th underground short film made by the Saudi female director Anhar Salem

While her father was in his deathbed, she and her nieces were playing in the rain.

Anhar, her sister Ansam and friends attempt to explore the modern part of Al-Balad in Jeddah. Anhar Salem documents herself walking for the first time in her car-oriented city.

A secret organization prepares to hack a data center. To remain anonymous during their meetings, the hackers take on the appearance of missing members of the organization.

Two guitars, the 24th underground short film made by the Saudi female filmmaker: Anhar Salem.

A documentary shot in Medina, Saudi Arabia, where an illuminating narrator leads a journey through the city’s neighborhoods, landmarks, and iconic features.

One part of a long-term documentary project revolving around the death of places.

Two memories of mine narrated by my nephews, asking their mother (my older sister) if the images they recall are fake or real. Being raised up by my old sister and growing up in the same place, the film reflects how everything is related, revolving around the same experiences and memories.

Tag Me if You Can combines found footage of daily expressions on social media, blurring the distinction between private and public spaces. These sequences are accompanied by a selection of mainstream commercials that star Saudis, rather than people from abroad, owing to the rising popularity - or what the artist calls "the new media revolution" - of home videos, YouTube shows, and vlogs. Through inlays and cut editing, Anhar Salem breaks the strict opposition between these two regimes of images, the first related to television and the second to individual expressions. Her red Zentai suit-clad performance recreate wedding rituals in the kingdom to a score that includes commercial jingles, matrimonial songs and K-Pop tunes sung by young Arab girls. By using Instagram's red filter, she presents different social media practices on an everyday scale while further masking the identities of the performers, creating, as it were, vacuums in the map of the internet.