Saudi Arabia: A Family Living in a Cemetery · Global Voices
Haifa Alrasheed

Away from the political scene and on a more human level, a short movie shot by young Saudi filmmaker Bader AlHomoud named “Almagbarah,” which translates to cemetery in Arabic, has changed the life of a Saudi family. Bader describes the montage phase in his tweet [ar]:
The three-minute movie, posted below from YouTube, shows a Saudi family living in a cemetery. It has no script, nor a dialog. It features members of the family and their children playing around the cemetery and the abject poverty they live in.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BlYFGVmr1Po
Saudi tweeps were emotionally touched by the movie and below are some of their reactions under the hashtag #ma8barah.
@MarwanAlrouqi describes the logic behind the location [ar]:
A screen shot from the movie
@hayaalshatti asks [ar]:
هل أصبحت خيارات الحياة تقف عند أنني يجب أن أفضح ملامحي وأنشر فقري في فلم .. حتى أحصل على كرامة .. تباً لمن سلبهم كرامتهم ! #ma8barah #KSA
And in reaction to the video, which has been watched more than 148,000 times on YouTube, smartman7779 says [ar]:
Three hours after publishing the movie, Princess Ameerah Al-Taweel, who is Vice-Chairwoman of the Board of Trustees and Head of the Executive Committee of the Al-Waleed bin Talal Foundations, announced on her Twitter [ar] account:
الحمد لله، ستقوم مؤسسة الوليد بن طلال الخيرية بتأمين سكن دائم لهذه العائلة وتم التواصل مع بدر الحمود وسنبدأ من الغد إن شاء الله #ma8barah
@malsahli [ar] comments:
and @essamz stresses on the power of the social media:
فيلم مدته 3 دقائق يؤدي لحل مشكلة عائلة خلال 3 ساعات من نشره. إنها قوة الإعلام الجديد. #ma8barah
Two days later, @BaderAlHomoud announces: