Jordanian film 'Inshallah A Boy' wins award at Cannes Film Festival

Jordanian film ‘Inshallah A Boy’ (Inshallah Walad) won an award at the prestigious Cannes Film Festival in France on Thursday. 

'Inshallah A Boy', the debut feature film by director Amjad Al-Rasheed, won the Gan Foundation Award for Distribution. 

فخورين بفيلم "إن شاء الله ولد" للمخرج أمجد الرشيد لفوزه بجائزة التوزيع من مؤسسة جان (Prix Fondation Aan à la Diffusion)، بعد منافسته في أسبوع النقاد بمهرجان كان.

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The film – the first from Jordan to have been selected for the festival since its first run in 1946 – delves into the thorny issue of a male-dominated society in the Arab world and confronts other taboos such as sex, pregnancy and misogyny. 

It follows the story of a widow, Nawal, who fights against Jordan’s archaic patriarchal society just to keep her family home.

After her husband dies and his family discovers she had given birth to 'only' a girl, Nawal’s in-laws may be entitled to everything she owns, including their home. Desperate and afraid, she pretends to be pregnant again – only this time with a boy.

Nawal’s story was inspired by a relative of al-Rasheed, who he said had faced the same situation. 

His relative had "dedicated her life to the service of her family, her daughter and husband, and when she bought a house with her own money her husband asked her to transfer the deeds into his name because it’s considered shameful for a man to live in a woman’s house," he said in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter earlier this month. 

The Gan Foundation award grants €20,000 for a debut or sophomore film to be distributed in France.