Moayad Abualkhair

When The Shelves Hymn

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 It is a discovery that will change her outdated view of men’s role as she and her son together embrace a new, independent life.