@2026 by mezzanine film, inc.
LEILA AND THE WOLVES (ليلى والذئاب)
directed by Heiny Srour
1984, UK/Lebanon/Belgium/Netherlands, 90m, DCP
New restoration courtesy of Several Futures. With writer-director Heiny Srour in person for a Q&A, moderated by Fariha Róisín.
Presented with Rotations LA. Special thanks to Corina Copp and Graham Carter.
Monday, March 17
2220 Arts + Archives
2220 Beverly Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90057
doors/bar: 7:30pm
film: 8:00pm
A major work of Arab cinema, Lebanese filmmaker Heiny Srour’s first narrative feature (following her landmark documentary The Hour of Liberation Has Arrived) is a gorgeously realized poetic evocation of the collective memory of Arab women across the twentieth century, using elements of fiction and documentary to restore the central role of Palestinian and Lebanese women to the resistance movements of the era. With a clear-eyed, unsentimental gaze, the film follows a young Lebanese woman (Nabila Zeitouni) who, in modern-day London, stages a photo exhibition about Arab women, but her research allows her to travel back in time to witness and participate in various junctures of memory and struggle. Shot on location in England, Syria, and Lebanon—often clandestinely, as the Lebanese Civil War was raging—Leila and the Wolves bravely weaves together oral tradition, folklore, myth and archival footage to elegantly reconstruct oft-ignored political and social contributions to history. A Several Futures release.
In Arabic with English subtitles.
“[A] feminist masterwork.” -The Guardian
“A film of monumental resolve and ambition, determined to address the contradictions within the anti-colonial struggle. It tells the forgotten and repressed stories of Arab women throughout the 20th century, fighting against British and Zionist colonialism, but also against male chauvinism, whether at home or on the battlefield. With a single actress playing multiple characters in different historical moments, the film dispenses with teleological linearity to emphasize the recurrence of oppression and the consequent need for constant and multifarious opposition.” -MUBI