The film is a co-production between Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Qatar.
Jordanian filmmaker Amjad Al Rasheed’s Inshallah A Boy has scooped the top $25,000 post-production prize at the fifth edition of the Marrakech International Film Festival’s Atlas Workshops project meeting.
Amjad Al-Rasheed said: “We are overjoyed to have received the grand prize from Atlas Workshops and are excited to show the film to audiences as soon as it is completed.”
The Atlas Workshops are an industry and talent development programme initiated in 2018 by the Marrakech International Film Festival. Through the programme, the festival works side by side with a new generation of Moroccan, Arab, and African filmmakers and creates a space for exchange between international professionals and regional talents.
Inshallah a Boy is a four-time award-winning film project from the Final Cut of the 79th Venice International Film Festival. It won the La Biennale di Venezia Jury Prize worth €5,000. It also received €12,000 in funding from Oticons, which will allow it to work with the company’s international composers to create the film’s score. Moreover, it received a $5,000 award from the El-Gouna Film Festival and a €2,500 award from the Festival International de Films de Fribourg.
Previously, Inshallah a Boy received a monetary prize of $10,000 presented by the Arab Radio and Television Network (ART) – a partner of the Arab Cinema Center (ACC) at the fifth Cairo Film Connection.
Additionally, the project received production and post-production support from the Royal Film Commission in two cycles, along with production support from the Doha Film Institute.
The film, a co-production between Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, is overseen by Jordan-based producer Rula Nasser for The Imaginarium Films. Meanwhile, MAD Solutions and Lagoonie Film Production are in charge of distributing it all over the Arab world.
The film tackles the problematic issue of women and inheritance in Jordan, an issue which is prevalent throughout the Arab world, where, due to antiquated laws, men inherit twice as much as women.
Directed by Amjad Al-Rasheed and co-written alongside Delphine Augte and Rula Nasser, Inshallah a Boy stars Muna Hawa, Haitham Omari, Salwa Nakkara, Yumna Marwan, Mohammad Al-Jizawi, Eslam Al-Awadi, and Cilina Rababa.
Inshallah a Boy marks Amjad’s second collaboration with MAD, as the latter handled distribution for his short film The Parrot with Darin J. Sallam.
