Layla
Synopsis
Official Selection Sundance Film Festival 2024 - World Cinema Dramatic Competition - World premiere
Official Selection BFI Flare LGBTQIA+ Film Festival 2024
Official Selection BFI London Film Festival 2024
Details
- Year
- 2024
- Type of film
- Features
- Running time
- 98 min
- Director
-
Amrou Al-Kadhi 1st Feature
- Producer
- Savannah James-Bayly
- Executive Producer
- Farhana Bhula, Nina Yang Bongiovi, Mary Burke, Louise Ortega, Forest Whitaker, Kevin M. Lin, Michael Y. Chow
- Editor
- Fiona Brands
- Screenwriter
- Amrou Al-Kadhi
- Director of Photography
- Craig Dean Devine
- Production Designer
- Soraya Gilanni Viljoen
- Principal cast
- Bilal Hasna, Louis Greatorex, Self Esteem, Baby, Safiyya Ingar, Terique Jarrett, Darkwah
Categories
Production Status
Production Company
Fox Club Films, Significant Productions in association with AUM Group. Supported by Film4, BFI
Sales Company
Independent (International sales)
24-26 Hanway StreetLondon
W1T 1UH
WME Independent (North America/global sales)
9601 Wilshire Blvd.Beverly Hills
CA 90210
USA
Page updates
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See also
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Original Sin
Director: Amrou Al-Kadhi
Year: 2025
After decades of lies, resentments and stolen identities, a Muslim mother confronts her drag queen son for her long overdue moment in the spotlight. Mother's husband and Son's father has just died. Mother is losing everything; her house, her glamour, her visibility. Son is profiting from grief; a drag queen who wins the applause his mother has never received. Whilst he has the spotlight, she is erased. He exaggerates stories of his mother, bartering in Islamophobic tropes to win white peoples’ sympathy. Her life is being re-written by her son – and he does it dressed as her. Like Medea before her, Mother decides to claim what is hers – her voice, her identity, her story, her trauma. She confronts her son backstage for a show. A tragic Greek confrontation ensues, where intergenerational curses are finally broken, and Mother claims what she feels is rightfully hers. Her womanhood, her spotlight, her moment. Official Selection BFI London Film Festival 2025 - World premiere Official Selection Aesthetica Film Festival 2025
Anemone
Director: Amrou Al-Kadhi
Year: 2018
Anemio is a non-binary Nigerian teenager, unable to express their gender identity to their conservative family. The only place they feel at peace is the local marine aquatics shop they work in, comforted by the formless and hermaphroditic marine life. So when social pressures escalate, they transform into an anemone.
The Ravenous Femme: Victoria Sin
Director: Amrou Al-Kadhi
Year: 2017
Victoria Sin unapologetically takes up space when they are in drag, giving spotlight and agency to the daily labours of femininity that are invisible and policed. Commissioned by NOWNESS, this film demonstrates the transformative power of Victoria's drag, positioning Victoria where they belong - in cinematic grandeur, with a gaze that they own. Official Selection BFI London Film Festival 2017 - Create Strand - Short Film Competition - World premiere