Leila and the Wolves

Heiny Srour's film covers the role of Arab women in the history of the past half century. Leila, a young woman preparing an exhibition in London, notices that women never appear in the photographs; from there the film goes back to events in Palestine and Lebanon. The narrative does not follow a straight chronology. It uses a structure based on oral tradition and mosaic arrangement; scenes from different periods are set side by side and the same performer plays more than one woman. The film's argument is that women took part in political struggle without entering the record. Srour tells it not as documentary but in a form combining fiction and archive. The production conditions were difficult and the film took a long time to complete. Who it's for: those interested in Arab cinema and feminist film history. Who it's not for: viewers expecting linear narrative; the film is deliberately fragmentary and contains war footage.