FLANA

Iraq, France, Qatar I 2025 I Arabic dialogue with English subtitles l 87 min

ABOUT FILM

Iraqi filmmaker Zahraa Ghandour presents her powerful feature-length documentary Flana, a deeply personal work that emerges from individual memory to reopen a collective, untold wound in contemporary Iraqi history. The film had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) before continuing its international journey, participating in several of the most important documentary and film festivals worldwide.

The film follows Ghandour back to her childhood home in Baghdad, on a quest for answers regarding the disappearance of her friend Noor more than twenty years ago. From this return, a documentary narrative emerges where personal investigation intersects with collective memory, turning homes, streets, and small objects into vessels for painful questions about absence, forgetting, and the legacies left behind by violence and war.

What distinguishes Flana is its courage in transforming a personal experience into a broader space for listening, without claiming to hold the ultimate truth or offering ready-made conclusions. Ghandour’s presence on camera serves as a tool for exploration, not as the center of discourse, while memories, testimonies, and silences intertwine to create a delicate and honest cinematic fabric. The title “Flana” is not merely a linguistic detail, but a metaphor for many women whose stories have been erased and voices silenced.

The film received wide critical acclaim, winning Best Arab Film at the 2025 Cairo International Film Festival. It also screened at IDFA, one of the world’s leading documentary film festivals, further strengthening its international presence and artistic significance.

Notably, Flana received a development grant from the Malmö Arab Film Fund, supported by the Swedish Film Institute, providing early backing that helped shape the project. Today, the film reaches its full presentation with a screening at the Malmö Arab Film Festival.

In this context, Flana offers a moving and profound documentary experience, raising painful questions about memory, absence, and the search for truth, while affirming the ability of Arab documentary cinema to transform personal pain into a universal artistic and human statement.