Heiny Srour

Saat El Tahrir Dakkat (The Hour of Liberation Has Arrived)

Director Heiny Srour

Courtisane

Edition 2021

Courtisane: Out of the Shadows

62' - 1974 - Dialogue: Arabic

In the late 60s, Dhofar rose up against the British-backed Sultanate of Oman, in a democratic, feminist guerrilla movement. Heiny Srour and her team crossed 500 miles of desert and mountains by foot, under bombardment by the British Royal Air Force, to reach the conflict zone and capture this rare record of a now mostly-forgotten war. The People’s Liberation Army — barefoot, without rank or salary — freed a third of the territory, while undertaking a vast program of social reforms and infrastructure projects — schools, farms, hospitals, and roads were built, while illiterate teenage shepherdesses became more forceful feminists than Simone de Beauvoir or Germaine Greer, and 8-year-old school children learned to practice democracy with more maturity than so many adults. A still-topical portrait of a liberated society and an exploration of the role of oil in U.S. and British involvement in the Middle East, The Hour of Liberation Has Arrived was the first film by an Arab woman to screen at Cannes. (Film Forum)

Digital Restoration by Cinémathèque Française & CNC.

“In the Arab world, it is the very first time that an organized political force considers the liberation of women as an end in itself and not only as a way to get rid of imperialism more rapidly. In the Arab world, it is the first time that practice goes as far as slogans.”