The work, which took part in the Critics’ Week competition, was well received when it premiered on Tuesday after the director revealed his cinematic approach to tackling one of the most controversial issues in the Arab world.
Amjad chose the easy and abstinent method to delve into the history of women and their inheritance rights, having opened up many unspoken files in Jordanian society.
The story revolves around the story of a Jordanian woman named Nawal (played by Jordanian actress Mona Hawa), who struggles for her right to inheritance after the death of her husband, in a society where the birth of A son has a great influence on the rules of distribution of inheritances.
With this audacious film, for which Jordanian cinema did not provide a similar model in the past, the Jordanian Royal Film Commission was able to decipher the Cannes Film Festival for the first time in the history of Jordan.
The secret of the success of Jordanian cinema
Jordanian cinema officials believe that the arrival of the first Jordanian film at the Cannes Film Festival is the result of years of work and not a coincidence.
Muhannad Al-Bakri, Director General of the Royal Film Commission of Jordan sums it up in an exclusive statement to Sky News Arabia, saying:
This film is the first co-production experience of this magnitude, and we focus on young people and their artistic vision by encouraging and supporting them. The commission supervised all stages of the film’s production, from the drafting of the script to the official competition hall of Critics’ Week at the 76th Cannes Film Festival. It seems that Jordanian cinema has acquired a great deal of experience in international festivals, through its insistence on being present in the international city of Cannes and at the Marché du Film over the past ten years.
The film “God Willing to Be Born” follows the production of 17 feature films and a large number of short films by the Jordanian Authority in recent years, which have successfully traveled to many major regional festivals.
Greetings to the Arab woman
For his part, the director Amjad expressed his joy at the arrival of his fictional experience in “Cannes”, indicating that he is now reaping the fruits of 6 years of writing, criticism, filming, selection of actors, and shuttle trips between Arab countries and international festivals in search of partners for his film project.
Regarding the motives for choosing the topic, Amjad told Sky News Arabia:
I feel the pain of women like Nawal, who finds herself in the vortex to save her family after the death of her husband. In the film, there are three levels of conflict, where the first level is formed in one of her deceased husband’s brothers, who claims his right to inheritance, indifferent to his financial situation. As for the second level, it is linked to the laws on civil status in Jordan, which do not look with pity on divorced women. The third level is embodied in the origins of Sharia and its vision of female inheritance rights.
Amjad aspires to win the prize of the competition for which 7 young directors are in competition. The Jordanian director’s luck seems abundant in this regard, given the strong turnout for the film.
Amjad belongs to the new generation of Jordanian directors, born in 1985 and holder of a master’s degree in directing and editing.
In 2016, he was chosen by the magazine Screen International in the category of young promising Arab directors, during the fifty-seventh session of the Berlin Film Festival.
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