Director: Amjad Al-Rasheed
"Inshallah a Boy" arrived in 2024 as Jordan's official entry to the international feature race, built around one mother's quiet fight to keep her home after tragedy.
What is Inshallah a Boy about?
After her husband's sudden death, Nawal finds herself holding a rented apartment, a young daughter, and almost nothing else: inheritance law hands most of her late husband's estate to his distant male relatives. As in-laws close in demanding the family car and threatening the roof over her head, Nawal has only weeks to secure legal guardianship of her daughter and protect whatever she can salvage. Rather than staging courtroom speeches, director Amjad Al-Rasheed follows Nawal's improvised, paperwork-driven strategy in close, tense quarters, turning a dispute over inheritance into a slow-burn story about what a woman is actually allowed to own.
Cast & crew
Mouna Hawa anchors the film as Nawal, playing her with a coiled, watchful energy that rarely tips into melodrama even as the pressure mounts. Salwa Nakkara and Yumna Marwan round out a cast drawn from Jordan, Palestine, and Egypt, and the ensemble keeps every confrontation grounded rather than theatrical.
Context & significance
The film premiered at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival in the Critics' Week sidebar before going on to represent Jordan in that year's international feature competition. Critics singled out its unhurried pacing and its refusal to reduce the story to a simple villain-versus-victim setup, instead letting every family member's motives feel understandable, if not forgivable.
Where & how to watch
"Inshallah a Boy" is available to stream on K-Time with a free account login; browsing this page, the synopsis, and the cast details doesn't require a separate purchase. K-Time's interface is built with a Farsi-first experience for the Iranian diaspora, so titles, recommendations, and details are all readable in Persian.