Leila and the Wolves

Sheikh Imam Mohammad Ahmad Eissa, born 1918, is famous throughout the Arab world for his folk songs indicting the ruling classes. Considered the voice of the oppressed, he is banned from state television and radio, and has been imprisoned numerous times, including in 1974 for the occasion of President Nixon’s visit. With scenes of Egyptian street life set to his often caustic musical criticisms of his native Egypt’s upper classes, the Sheikh’s message is that “If a beautiful thing is suppressed today, it will rise tomorrow.”

In the late 1960s, Dhofar rose up against the British-backed Sultanate of Oman, in a democratic, anti-imperialist guerrilla movement. Director Heiny Srour and her team crossed 500 miles of desert and mountains by foot, under bombardment by the British Royal Air Force, to reach the conflict zone and capture this rare record of a now mostly-forgotten war.