Flana

Zahraa Gandour takes her own childhood as a point of departure in a poetic, understated yet powerful, debut about how Iraqi female children have been systematically displaced and erased.

Zahraa has never forgotten her friend Nour, who suddenly disappeared when she was ten years old. As an adult, and with the camera as her support, she now dares to ask her aunt—a charismatic Bagdad midwife—about what happened. The answer turns out to concern not only Nour, but countless unwanted girls who were given away, cast out, exploited, and forgotten. Flana is a strikingly beautiful film about a repugnant chapter of women’s history, in a country where patriarchal rules and clan laws regained ground. But we—and Zahraa—also meet Layla, who survived the system and today defiantly gives it the finger.

• Camilla Larsson