When The Shelves Hymn

Overview

After Mariam’s husband mysteriously disappears, she reluctantly takes their teenage son Saeed from their home in Jeddah to mountainous AIUla, intending to sell their family-owned antique shop. Saeed is sullenly resentful, detesting the move; Mariam struggles to stay in charge while she searches for the title documents she needs to make a sale. What she finds instead are unpaid bills, a video diary in which her husband confessed to severe depression and some newspaper clippings about suicide. It is a discovery that will change her outdated view of men’s role as she and her son together embrace a new, independent life.