Leila and the Wolves

dir. Heiny Srour, 90 minutes, in Arabic with English subtitles

Drawing on the Arab heritage of oral tradition and mosaic pattern, Heiny Srour’s landmark film combines fictional drama, archival footage, and fantasy sequences to explore the collective memory of Arab women and their hidden role in history throughout the past half-century both in Palestine and in Lebanon.

Forty years ago, a landmark film by Lebanese director Heiny Srour centred the less visible stories and histories of women in Lebanon and Palestine through an audacious feminist rewriting. Now re-emerging in a new restoration, Leila and the Wolves (1984) revolves around the eponymous Leila (Nabila Zeitouni), a London-based Lebanese woman who, in pondering her future within the limits of the patriarchal imagination, begins to question the long-hidden roles that women have had in Lebanese history, including how they entwine with the Palestinian resistance movement.