FROM ABDUL TO LEILA

D’ABDUL À LEILA

By Leila ALBAYATY

DÉRIVES ASBL - as PROD

Biography - Completed 2023

Amnesia, art, and heritage intertwine in the quest of Leila, a Franco-Iraqi artist who, after an accident, reconstructs her past by learning Arabic between Europe and the Middle East and singing the poems of her exiled father.

Festivals
& Awards

El Gouna Film Festival 2023
    • Year of production
    • 2023
    • Genres
    • Biography, Family, Art - Culture
    • Countries
    • BELGIUM, GERMANY
    • Languages
    • FRENCH, ENGLISH, ARABIC
    • Duration
    • 92 mn
    • Director(s)
    • Leila ALBAYATY
    • Producer(s)
    • Julie FRERES (Dérives)
    • Synopsis
    • After an accident that causes her to lose her memory and several years of exile, a young Franco-Iraqi woman reconnects with her family to understand who she is. Reunited at her family home in the south of France, Leila confronts her father Abdul with his own past, the Iraq war, and decides to learn Arabic to put into song the poems he wrote to her. The language and the music gradually open the way to long-suppressed memories and lead her to discover her origins and the Arab world. The odyssey of a woman who sings her history to reinvent herself, inhabited by an irrepressible desire to live.