The Iraqi feature film "Flana" had a full-house screening this evening at the Small Theatre of the Cairo Opera House as part of the Cairo International Film Festival, where it competes in the Horizons of Arab Cinema section.
Written and directed by Zahraa Ghandour, the film is a deeply intimate and quietly devastating exploration of women’s lives in post-war Iraq; those whose stories rarely make it to the screen, let alone to the public consciousness.
At its core, ''Flana'' follows Zahraa, who returns to her childhood home in Baghdad to unravel the two-decade-old disappearance of her friend Noor.
Raised by an aunt who worked as a midwife for the women of the neighborhood, Zahraa steps back into a world saturated with memories, silences, and hidden wounds.
What begins as a search for answers slowly transforms into a confrontation with a painful social reality.
Zahraa’s journey is not just about Noor. It becomes an inquiry into the thousands of girls who vanished into the shadows of harsh patriarchal traditions, economic desperation, and the chaos left behind by years of war.
Although ""Flana is a narrative film, it deliberately adopts the texture of a documentary, grounding its fiction in lived experience.
Ghandour’s direction focuses on small, delicate details, a gesture, a pause, an object in an abandoned room — revealing the complexity of womanhood in conservative Iraqi households.
The film weaves intersecting narrative threads, using them to answer a larger, haunting question: What becomes of the bond between mother and daughter when society itself is shaped by violence, stigma, and systemic erasure?
Through Zahraa’s encounters, particularly with Leila, a 22-year-old woman scarred by social violence and exclusion, the film exposes the brutal pressures that led many mothers to abandon, or even lose, their daughters.
The echoes of the American invasion and the fall of Baghdad linger in every frame, shaping lives long after the bombs stop falling.
Born in 1991 and based in Baghdad, Zahraa Ghandour brings to the film her experience as an actress, filmmaker, and producer, as well as her background in radio and television.
Her evolution from presenter to storyteller is evident in her ability to craft scenes that feel both cinematic and profoundly real.
Ghandour gives her narrators — and the women they embody — space to breathe: space to speak, to fall silent, to cry, to hesitate, to remember. Emotions flow without shame or theatricality. It is precisely this restraint that makes the film so gripping.
A Chorus of Silenced Women
What Flana does best is bring the suffering, endurance, and resilience of Iraqi women to the surface.
Even the title, Flana, literally “So-and-So” or “Unnamed Woman,” underscores Ghandour’s intention: to represent the countless women whose stories remain unheard, lost in the “noise of the big city,” as the protagonist poignantly remarks.
Using the mystery of Noor as a narrative entry point, the film expands into a broader, more urgent conversation about the societal systems that render women invisible, from abandonment and infanticide to institutional neglect and generational trauma.
Flana is not just a film; it is an act of remembrance and resistance. Its quiet style, overlapping stories, and documentary-like realism make it a powerful contribution to contemporary Arab cinema and a standout entry at the Cairo International Film Festival.
Zahraa Ghandour has crafted a film that pulls the viewer into the emotional labyrinth of Iraqi womanhood with elegance, courage, and unwavering compassion.
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