IT’S A BOY Project Competes at Final Cut In Venice Workshop

release date August 10 2022

Film project IT’S A BOY (INSHALLAH WALAD), by Amjad Al-Rasheed, competes at the Final Cut in Venice Workshop, which is part of the activities of the 79th Venice International Film Festival (August 31-Sep.10). This year the festival is headed by superstar Julianne Moore.

The Final Cut in Venice workshop supports films in the post-production stage from Africa, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, and Syria. The film selections are screened to an audience of producers, distributors, and programmers of international film festivals. The workshop concludes with an award ceremony to honor the winning films that will be supported through the post-production phase.

IT’S A BOY (INSHALLAH WALAD) received a grant from Cairo Film Connection of Cairo International Film Festival and from the Red Sea Fund, during the 1st edition of Red Sea International Film Festival. Furthermore, the project got production and post-production support from the Royal Film Commission in two cycles, in addition to production support from the Doha Film Institute.

The film follows Nawal who suddenly loses her husband and finds herself facing society and its laws. However, things turn upside down when she gives birth to a boy.

Directed by Amjad Al-Rasheed who co-wrote the film with Delphine Augte and Rula Nasser, IT’S A BOY stars Muna Hawa, Haitham Omari, Salwa Nakkara, Yumna Marwan, Mohammad Al Jizawi and Eslam Al Awadi. The film was produced by Imaginarium Films (Rula Nasser and Aseel Abu Ayyash) in collaboration with Bayt Al Shawareb (Theeb, The Alleys), while MAD Solutions and Lagoonie Film Production are in charge of its distribution throughout the Arab world.

It's worth mentioning that IT'S A BOY is not Amjad's first collaboration with MAD; the latter handled the distribution for his short film The Parrot with Darren Salam, which received several international awards, including the Jury Award for Best Short Film at the Mizna’s Twin Cities Arab Film Festival in the USA and Malmö Arab Film Festival. Moreover, the film landed its world premiere at the 2016 Dubai International Film Festival (DIFF) and is now available on OSN.

Amjad Al-Rasheed is a Jordanian director who holds an MFA from the Red Sea Institute of Cinematic Arts (RSICA). After receiving the Best Scenarist Award for short fiction at the First Film Production competition in Amman in 2005, Amjad started working as director, producer and production designer on music videos, short and feature films. In 2007, he attended Berlinale Talents at the 57th Berlinale Film Festival.

Amjad Al-Rasheed also directed Hit The Road, a World Economic Forum (WEF) commercial film supported by the King Abdullah II Center for Excellence, the Royal Film Commission.

His directing credits include five short films that screened at international film festivals. In 2013, he directed the Jordanian comedy series The Rania Show. In 2016, he was listed on ScreenDaily's 'Arab Stars of Tomorrow' among five emerging film talents from the Arab world.

Rula Nasser is a Jordanian independent producer, with experience in all aspects of production ranging from commercials, TV series, low-budget movies, and big-budget businesses. She started her career in the film industry by working on several international productions for BBC and Discovery channels. She worked at the Royal Film Commission - Jordan (RFC) for five years and established The Filmmaker’s Support Program. In 2011, Rula founded her own production company, The Imaginarium Films, which focuses on discovering local talents and developing appealing universal stories set in the Arab world.