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

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.

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.

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.

A short documented visit to the ophthalmologist by Anhar Salem

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

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

Streets of Jeddah.

Streets of Jeddah.