Women of the Holy Kingdom is filmmaker Sharmeen Obaid's compelling and personal report into the emerging women's movement in Saudi Arabia.

In Saudi Arabia, women need permission from their male guardians to study, work and travel. They are also forbidden to drive and to mix with men in public. Now, a growing number of Saudi women are challenging these traditions and are clamouring for more rights. Obaid documents the emerging women's movement and also interviews religious clerics and young working mothers who denounce change and label the women's movement as immoral. She travels across Saudi Arabia to explore why the Muslim religion's holiest land treats half its population as second-class citizens. From segregated restaurants to banks and shopping malls Women of the Holy Kingdom provides a rare look at the life of Saudi women. From all-women factories to a women's conference and a gathering of intellectuals, the program also provides an unprecedented look at the faces behind the emerging women's movement. Obaid meets Nadia Bakhurji, the first Saudi woman to announce her candidacy for the country's new local elections. She also gets access to young female students at an all-women's university who make it very clear what rights they want in the future. Obaid also meets young women who embrace the Islamic traditions that so many in the West can't understand and won't tolerate. Women of the Holy Kingdom takes you on an eye-opening journey across the vast deserts of Saudi Arabia to show you places and faces rarely seen in the West.

Saudi Arabia is a monarchy in southwestern Asia, occupying most of the Arabian Peninsula. Saudi Arabia is a land of vast deserts and little rainfall. Huge deposits of oil and natural gas lie beneath the country’s surface. Saudi Arabia was a relatively poor nation before the discovery and exploitation of oil, but since the 1950s income from oil has made the country wealthy. The religion of Islam developed in the 7th century in what is now Saudi Arabia. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia was founded in 1932 by Abdul Aziz ibn Saud, and it has been ruled by his descendants ever since.

Saudi Arabia is bounded on the north by Jordan, Iraq, and Kuwait; on the east by the Persian Gulf and Qatar; on the southeast by the United Arab Emirates and Oman; on the south by Yemen; and on the west by the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aqaba. The country’s border with the United Arab Emirates is not precisely defined. Saudi Arabia has an area of about 2,240,000 sq km (about 864,900 sq mi). The capital and largest city is Riyadh.

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