Film: “Amira”

This event has passed.

AMC Madison 6, Cinema 1
@ 7:45 pm - 9:00 pm

Part of the Wisconsin Film Festival, cosponsored by MESP


Amira, a 17-year-old Palestinian, was conceived through artificial insemination with the smuggled sperm of her father, Nawar, who has been in prison since before she was born. Although their relationship since birth has been restricted to prison visits, Amira considers Nawar a hero and martyr for the cause of Palestinian independence. His absence in her life is overcompensated with love and affection from her mother and other family surrounding her. But when a failed attempt to conceive another child reveals Nawar’s infertility, Amira learns the truth about her parents

An emotional and tragic melodrama, Amira is the latest feature from the imaginative Egyptian filmmaker Mohammed Diab, director of Clash (WFF 2017) and the upcoming Marvel series Moon Knight. Working from the very real premise that more than a hundred babies have been conceived through artificial insemination between men in prisons and their wives in the outside world, Diab finds a provocative and compelling way to explore what it means to grow up in the very eye of the storm of contemporary Israeli-Palestinian relations, and in a family where women and girls are subjugated as second class citizens Winner, Interfilm Award, Laterna Magica Award, 2021 Venice International Film Festival. (Jim Healy)