While the Red Sea Festival in Saudi Arabia is in full swing, D’Amjad Al Rasheed’s first film plunges us into the horrors of the condition of women in Jordan and is already causing a sensation.
Since November 30, the 17 films in competition have been revealed throughout the Red Sea International Film Festival, which highlights cinema from Asia, Africa and the Arab world. If the reactions of festival-goers are to be believed, the sensitivity of Inshallah a son, the first film by Jordanian director Amjad Al Rasheed has aroused enthusiasm in Jeddah, including ours! The film features Nawal, a 30-year-old Jordanian woman, played by Mouna Hawa, who suddenly loses her husband. Victim of the laws in force in the country, she must fight for her share of the inheritance, in order to save her daughter and her house in a society where having a son would have changed the situation.
Crazy journey
Supported by the Red Sea Fund and selected to represent Jordan at the Oscars, the Franco-Jordanian-Saudi co-production began its crazy journey by winning the Gan Foundation prize at Critics’ Week in Cannes. Since then, the film has been screened – and often awarded – in around twenty events in France and around fifty internationally, from the BFI in London to the Toronto Festival via the Jakarta Cinema Week (audience prize) , the Camerimage in Poland (best first film prize) and the Rotterdam Arab Film Festival (jury prize and best actress prize). Mouna Hawa even won the acting awards at the Asia Pacific Screen Award in Australia and at the Thessaloniki Film Festival (Greece). An extraordinary journey.
Resist without weapons
Nourished by the conversations of women he heard in his childhood, the director was inspired by a true story he witnessed. His sensitivity allows him to deliver a delicate film which bears witness, without sensationalism but with depth, to a society where women are simply trying to exist. We witness the journey of Nawal who resists without weapons but with determination to save his skin and that of his daughter. The audience laughs when she recognizes absurd scenes of daily life, applauds when the heroine, victim of repeated street harassment, dares to revolt or shudders in the face of her dismay. The film is shocking, and if the jury chaired by Baz Luhrmann is also sensitive to it, Inshallah a son could well have its place in the rankings of the Saudi festival which will be revealed this Saturday, December 9. And will be on French screens on March 6.