CARTHAGE — The Saudi female director Shahad Ameen won the Bronze Tanit Award at the 30th session of the Carthage Film Festival for her film Scales (Sayidat Al Bahr) in the long narrative movies category. The movie was shown for the first time before an Arab audience in Tunisia. Scales had also won the Verona Film Club Award for most innovative film in the Critics' Week section where it premiered in September. Ameen, carrying the message of women empowerment in the Kingdom here, proved that her unique vision and world outlook not only makes for great entertainment but also provided an insight into the future of filmmaking. Set in a dystopian landscape, Scales is the story a young girl who embraces her destiny when she stands alone against her family and overturns the village tradition of sacrificing the female children to the mysterious creatures inhabiting the waters nearby. Shot on location in Oman, Scales stars Basima Hajjar as Hayat, alongside Ashraf Barhom (Coriolanus, Clash of the Titans, The Kingdom), Yagoub Alfarhan (Ekhtraq, Bedoon Filter, Love Without Limits) and Fatima Al Taei (star of Image Nation's courtroom drama Justice). The film was produced by Paul Miller and Stephen Strachan of Abu Dhabi-based, Film Solutions and Rula Nasser of Imaginarium Films and, with executive producers Mohamed Al-Daradji and Majid Al-Ansari. "Scales tells a visceral story about growing up as a woman in a patriarchal society, offering an allegorical take on a universal theme that will resonate with audiences around the world," Ameen had said in Venice. "Relying on simple yet powerful storytelling, it is a very visual experience with minimal dialogue — maintaining a timeless, meditative aspect even in its action scenes. I want to immerse viewers in Hayat's journey from her own point of view, letting them share in her experience as she finds her true self," she added. Giona A. Nazzaro, the general delegate for Venice Critics' Week, had said about ‘Scales': "I was aware of the project for a long time. I was also aware of the previous short Ameen had done [Eye & Mermaid]. "Obviously there were great expectations but the film was even stronger and bigger than I expected. It was stronger and bigger in a very interesting way because it's a film that does not show off. "It's a film about the craft itself of filmmaking, it's about how you reshape the world with the tool of cinema and it's one of the most interesting and challenging coming of age stories of the last years."
