Heiny Srour

Heiny Srour (born March 23, 1945[1]) is a Lebanese film director. She was the first female Arab filmmaker to have a film, Saat El Tahrir Dakkat or The Hour of Liberation Has Arrived, chosen for the Cannes Film Festival.[2] Srour believed that Arab society oppressed women and kept them in a subordinate role, which prevented them from opportunities to create art. Srour advocated for women's rights through her films, her writing, and by funding other filmmakers.[3]

Heiny Srour
Born (1945-03-23) March 23, 1945
Beirut
NationalityLebanese
OccupationFilm director
Known forFirst female Arab filmmaker to have a film chosen for the Cannes Film Festival
Notable work
The Hour of Liberation Has Arrived, Leila and the Wolves

Career

Born in 1945 in Beirut, Srour studied sociology at the American University in Beirut and then completed a doctorate in social anthropology at the Sorbonne. Her first film, Bread of Our Mountains (1968, 3', 16mm) was lost during the Lebanese Civil War.[1]

In 1974, her film The Hour of Liberation Has Arrived, about an uprising in Oman,[4] was selected to compete at the Cannes Film Festival, making Srour the first Arab woman to have a film selected for the international festival.[2][5] It is believed that her documentary film The Hour of Liberation Has Arrived was actually the first film by any female filmmaker to be screened at the festival.[6]

Srour was vocal about the position of women in Arab society, and in 1978, along with Tunisian director Salma Baccar and Arab cinema historian Magda Wassef, she announced a new assistance fund "for the self-expression of women in cinema."[3]

Filmography

Short films and documentaries
  • The Singing Sheikh (1991, 10', video)
  • The Eyes of the Heart (1998, 52', video)
  • Women of Vietnam (1998, 52', video)
  • Woman Global Strike 2000 (2000, video)

Feature films

References
  1. Hillauer, Rebecca (2005). Encyclopedia of Arab Women Filmmakers. American Univ in Cairo Press. pp. 182–. ISBN 978-977-424-943-3.
  2. "Heiny Srour". The New York Times. Retrieved November 13, 2015.
  3. Srour, Heiny; Baccar, Salma; Wassef, Magda (Fall 1979). "For the Self-Expression of Arab Women". Cinéaste. 9 (4): 37.
  4. "Saat El Fahrir Dakkat". The New York Times. Retrieved November 13, 2015.
  5. "Heiny SROUR". Festival de Cannes. Archived from the original on November 17, 2015. Retrieved November 13, 2015.
  6. Stone, Rob, with Paul Cooke, Stephanie Dennison, Alex Marlow-Mann. The Routledge Companion to World Cinema, Routledge; 1 edition (October 3, 2017), page 209
  7. Armes, Roy (2010). Arab Filmmakers of the Middle East: A Dictionary. Indiana University Press. ISBN 978-0253355188.
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