The Hour of Liberation Has Arrived

In the early 1970s, Lebanese filmmaker Heiny Srour and her crew trekked 800 km on foot from the Yemen border to Dhofar to make this documentary. It was a perilous undertaking, given there was a battle for independence underway in this remote governorate of Oman.

Srour’s main focus was on women fighting for independence against the colonial oppression of the Omani regime, which was supported by the British government. She deploys archive footage, photographs, location footage and music in a powerful statement against oppression and for self-determination in the realms of politics, culture, economics and sexuality. Srour shows the Arab soldiers in their uniforms, hair cut short and weapons on their backs—women who are doing all the same things the men do.

This recently restored documentary, which was banned throughout the Arab world, was the first by a female Lebanese director to be selected for Cannes and screened at the festival.