Key Points
- Algeria, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Palestine and Saudi Arabia filed submissions for the 99th Academy Awards.
- Subjects range from Lebanon's banking crisis and Algeria's 1990s violence to a documentary filmed in northern Gaza.
- Last year a record four Arab films reached the 15-title shortlist, with Tunisia advancing to the final five.
The latest:
Eight Arab countries have named the films that will represent them in the Best International Feature Film category at the 2027 Oscars, according to The National, with the Academy’s September 30 submission deadline now passed. The entries span a Lebanese heist thriller, an Algerian horror film, a Kurdish-language war drama and a Gaza war documentary. A 15-film shortlist lands on December 15.
Details:
- Lebanon: Rami Kodeih’s Furies, a heist thriller inspired by the banking crisis, follows two sisters who plan to break into a bank to retrieve savings they cannot access, partly to fund life-saving surgery. Kodeih and co-writer Nora Mariana told The National the premise grew from their own experience. Lebanon’s committee chose it unanimously.
- Iraq: Halkawt Mustafa’s No Paradise If You Are Killed by a Woman follows Vyan, a Kurdish sniper who returns to Mosul after learning her sister, missing since the 2014 ISIS assault, may be alive. Mustafa has said Kurdish women who fought ISIS inspired the film. It is a Norway-Iraq-UAE-Sweden co-production.
- Palestine: Ahmed Hassouna’s 69-minute documentary Citizen Osama, filmed in northern Gaza, follows photographer Osama Al-Ashi as he records the destruction around him while protecting his wife and newborn. Culture Minister Imad Hamdan announced the pick on August 31 on an independent committee’s recommendation. It is Palestine’s 19th submission since 2003.
- Algeria: Yanis Koussim’s Roqia centres on an ageing spiritual healer living with Alzheimer’s and an amnesiac man returning to his village, moving between the 1990s and the present. Koussim told The National his own memories of the period shaped the story. Algeria has five previous nominations and won for Z in 1970.
- Morocco: Laila Marrakchi’s La Mas Dulce, also known as Strawberries, follows two women who travel to Andalusia as seasonal strawberry pickers and face exploitation and harassment. The committee chose it unanimously on September 2 from four contenders, citing subject, technical and artistic qualities and distribution prospects.
- Egypt: Abu Bakr Shawky’s semi-autobiographical anthology The Stories traces a romance between an Egyptian pianist and an Austrian woman from the late 1960s to the 1980s, with Nelly Karim and Amir El Masry among the cast. The committee picked it after two voting rounds from 36 eligible films.
- Jordan: Zain Duraie’s Sink stars Clara Khoury as a mother confronting her teenage son’s worsening mental health crisis. Duraie said she wanted to explore the subject through a Jordanian family rather than the stories Arab filmmakers are often expected to tell abroad. The Royal Film Commission said the committee decided independently.
- Saudi Arabia: Anas Ba Tahaf’s A Matter of Life and Death, set in Jeddah, stars Sarah Taibah as a woman convinced she will die on her 30th birthday and Yaqoub Al-Farhan as a heart surgeon with an unusually slow heartbeat. Taibah also wrote the screenplay, blending romance, dark comedy and fantasy.
- The festival route: Furies and Citizen Osama premiered at Venice, Roqia screened in Venice’s Critics’ Week in 2025, La Mas Dulce played Un Certain Regard at Cannes in May, and Sink premiered in Toronto in 2025 before London and Red Sea.
Background:
Tunisia reached the final five last year with Kaouther Ben Hania’s The Voice of Hind Rajab, the only one of four shortlisted Arab titles to be nominated. The others were Iraq’s The President’s Cake, Palestine’s Palestine 36 and Jordan’s All That’s Left of You.
Between the lines:
Three entries are debut features, and several committees stressed the independence or unanimity of their votes. The slate leans on recent history rather than heritage subjects: the banking collapse, the 1990s violence, the fight against ISIS, labour abuse in Spain and the Gaza war. Repeat directors in Iraq and Egypt show countries returning to filmmakers who previously carried their submission.
What’s next
The Academy announces the 15-film shortlist on December 15 and the five nominees on January 21. The 99th Academy Awards ceremony takes place in Los Angeles on March 14, 2027.
