I decided to take up an invite from a friend of a friend,
who I'd been speaking to online,
to go to the launch party of a magazine.
Not long ago, religious police could've arrested people
caught dancing to Western music.
Finally, my friend arrives.
I've been invited to a house party at a compound.
Come on. We've got to go, we've got to go.
How are you?
Hi.
Are you recording.
Well, I have to say, if that's the Saudi that I would live...
..if I lived here,
it's not any different to the life I live in London,
where I feel like sometimes I have to be really discreet
about what I do so that I don't insult anyone,
or I don't disappoint my family.
And I didn't think I would, like, be going home with really sore
balls of my feet, like I do on a London night out.
That's, like, far removed from what I thought would happen.
It's, like, 2.30 in the morning.
Wouldn't have called it.
It's hard to believe that before June 2018, women would be
arrested for attempting to drive.
Oh, it's a woman driving!
THEY CHEER
Really?
I've already been here a week, but I still haven't driven a car.
I might even be the first British woman to drive in Saudi.
Our government minder is at the car rental place when we arrive,
and he's already decided where he wants me to drive.
I haven't told them that this is my first time driving
without an instructor.
I only got my license two weeks before coming.
Left, left, left, left, left!
What do you mean...oh, as in there?
Oh, you...
You need to be calm.
HE LAUGHS
Can we stop for a minute?
We ask our fixer to get the USB from the other car,
so we can play some music.
While me and Jess are alone,
I google the activist who campaigned for the right to drive.
The government effectively wanted to take credit.
They don't want the activists to take credit, for they feel like...
They're like, "We, as men, gave it to you."
Given that they've been advocating for it for years.
The article goes on to say that Loujain and eight others are
now in prison.
Minutes later, the mood turns sour.
You don't need to be outside.
It turns out that one of our local crew overheard us talking
about the imprisoned activists,
and immediately reported it to the government minder.
The people in charge at the fixer's company are furious.
We didn't...like, this is crazy,
Like, I literally was just reading an article...
Get in the car, for a second, Jess - get in the car.
She's basically said, "Stop filming."
She's like, "The synopsis is not what we said it was,
and you're...this is going completely off-track",
and "I don't want you to film any more."
It's just like...
This control is...
The next morning, we call our boss.
ON PHONE:
done a wrong thing by even talking about any sensitive issues.
You need to leave with Jess tomorrow afternoon.
I'm disappointed cos, I guess, this week was, like, we were doing
so many fun, amazing things.
It's almost like you have to leave a country like this to just stew
in its own kind of...thing that they want to do.
I'm sad to have to leave my aunt so abruptly.
I came here to see if I could live in the country I was born in.
The supposedly new Saudi Arabia.
But it seems that Saudi hasn't really changed enough.