Director Amjad Al Rasheed’s first feature film, Inshallah a Boy, tells the story of a mother standing up to Jordan’s archaic, patriarchal inheritance laws. Carried charismatically by award-winning actress Mouna Hawa, the film also addresses broader issues of gender inequality.
Inspired by a member of Al Rasheed’s own family, Inshallah a Boy is a story about Nawal (Mouna Hawa), a young mother who wakes up to find her husband has suddenly died.
Left alone with her young daughter, she knows their lives will be challenging and not just emotionally.
She faces a law that exists in most Arabic countries: if a woman loses her husband and doesn’t have a son, part of the inheritance goes to her in-laws.
“I want to raise moral questions, provoke people to think and start a conversation. For me, a film starts after the people leave the theatre,” Al Rasheed told RFI after the film’s premiere at the Cannes Film Festival as part of the Critics’ Week line-up.
In Nawal’s case, her in-laws “allow” her to continue living in her house, but they make it clear that her options are now limited.
Although she bought the house with her dowry, her husband signed the deed in his name to avoid the social shame of female ownership.
Although it is technically her property, she has no proof.
If Nawal had been pregnant with a boy at the time of her husband's death, her problems would be solved – hence the film’s title.
Then, Nawal finds help from an unlikely source: the wealthy daughter of the Christian woman she works for. A strategy to get around their legal situations involves a ruse that is as tenuous as it is touching.
Complex society
Al Rasheed says that it was important to explore Jordanian society's “grey areas”. With characters from different faiths, he tries to show women’s universal struggle for rights goes beyond religion.
Al Rasheed is aware that he can’t speak for the women themselves. Throughout the creative process, he surrounded himself with women for both advice and co-writing, with support from producer Rula Nasser and writer Delphine Agut.
During a long research phase, he says he took inspiration from his own mother and other women from all backgrounds who are "fighters, strong characters trying to make their way in this society".
“At the end of the day, they are the weakest link because traditions and laws are against them, and society doesn’t support them,” he adds.
“I don’t believe the film is solely about Jordanian society,” he told Cannes Critics Week journalist Perrine Quennesson.
“It tackles the inequalities and violence imposed on women around the world…I could make a film in Europe and talk about the wage gap.
"There are many rules and laws in place for women to feel inferior, and it is that injustice that I wanted to call out.”
Best actress award
Inshallah a Boy made headlines in 2023 as the first film from Jordan to be selected as part of the Cannes Film Festival. It won the Gan Foundation Award for Distribution.
Postcard from Cannes #3: About a Boy
Since its premiere in Cannes, it has travelled to dozens of other festivals worldwide and picked up numerous awards, notably Best Actress for Mouna Hawa at the Red Sea Film Festival last December.
It was released in France on 6 March, just ahead of International Women’s Day.
