“Why is all my positive energy always going down the drain and I end up depressed? Why does society think that once a woman turns 30, she cannot learn something new?” laments Ola Ammar, a 36-year-old woman in a wheelchair, during a scene in "Colored Dress," a film by Egyptian director Ehab Moustafa.

Ammar is one of the 15 women whose stories are told in the film in order to show the different aspects of women’s lives in Egypt. The 40-minute film, released last December, is a mix of reality and imagination, where each woman plays her own life story. The story line of how the women’s lives are intertwined is fictional.

Moustafa told Al-Monitor that he wanted the film to address the challenges women face in society, as well as Egyptian society's negative attitude toward women who want to be socially and economically independent.

“Society’s attitude toward independent women is deformed in Egypt, as people see them as bad or rebellious,” Moustafa said. “With the 'Colored Dress,' I wanted to tell a story based on reality and to bring the audience different examples of independent women from Egypt’s middle class.”