For more than six years, Bvlgari has marked Emirati Women’s Day by turning its attention to the women whose stories, achievements and legacies continue to shape the UAE. This year, the Maison looks beyond conventional ideas of empowerment, choosing instead to explore something quieter and perhaps more enduring: the influence women carry from one generation into the next.
Created around the Emirati Women’s Day theme, “Together, We Rise Stronger and Better,” the campaign sees Bvlgari partner with Emirati cultural figure and Cinema Akil founder Butheina Kazim to develop an original short film, The Girl I Needed.
At its centre is Mariam, a young Emirati woman whose story unfolds from childhood into adulthood. Through different stages of her life, the film explores identity, belonging and self-acceptance, examining how the women around us shape the people we eventually become.
Rather than presenting empowerment as a final destination or singular breakthrough, The Girl I Needed treats it as something continuously evolving. Courage grows over time. Identity develops. Confidence is learned and questioned. Wisdom is inherited, but each generation also finds its own way of carrying it forward.
It is an approach that feels particularly relevant to the meaning behind Emirati Women’s Day. The film does not focus only on individual achievement. Instead, it considers the collective strength created when knowledge, memory and experience are passed down between women.
The result is an intimate reflection on the relationships that often shape us long before we fully understand their influence. Mothers, grandmothers, mentors and the women who enter our lives at crucial moments become part of the way we understand ourselves. The film celebrates this ancestral wisdom and positions Emirati women not simply as individuals navigating their own journeys, but as anchors within families, communities and generations.
Written and directed by Taqwa Bint Ali, the short reflects her wider interest in storytelling rooted in emotion, identity, culture and shared human experience. The film was produced with Studio HARAKA, a multidisciplinary studio whose work draws from movement and the cultural rhythms of the Gulf, giving the project a visual language grounded in the region.
Executive producer Butheina Kazim worked alongside producer Osama Mutasem, director of photography Anas Alkassim, and lead actress Mariam Shamma to bring the story to life.
Ultimately, The Girl I Needed asks us to consider not only the woman we have become, but the women who helped us get there.
Strength is rarely created alone. Sometimes, it is inherited in gestures, advice, memories and stories. And sometimes, becoming the woman you needed begins with recognising the women who were already there.
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