Heiny Srour

Her 1984 feature film, Leila and the Wolves, also reflects feminist politics. The film charts the story of Leila, a young Lebanese woman from London who travels through time through twentieth-century Lebanon and Palestine. Srour's first feature film, Leila and the Wolves utilizes the art of documentary with the intricacies of Arabian mythology. Although fictional, she employs a symbolism that parallels an authentic narrative constructed from experience. Archival footage is woven into the composition to strategically emulate the complex, historical narratives. Further, Srour shares a feminist perspective that echoes the colonial past. In a 2019 interview with Mary Jirmanus Saba, Srour shares,"...when I saw 8 ½, I realized that cinema was a very powerful medium that could express everything I wanted to say. But my main motivation in overcoming so many hurdles was feminist." Additionally, she invites audiences of every background and gender to deeply immerse themselves in the courageous events of the time, and aims to inspire other filmmakers to share their historically-rich stories as well.

Srour was also vocal about the position of women in Arab society, and in 1978, along with Tunisian director Salma Baccar and Arab cinema historian Magda Wassef, she announced a new assistance fund "for the self-expression of women in cinema."

In 1974, her film The Hour of Liberation Has Arrived, about the Dhofar Rebellion in Oman, was selected to compete at the Cannes Film Festival, making Srour the first Arab woman to have a film selected for the international festival. It is believed that her documentary film The Hour of Liberation Has Arrived was actually the first film by any female filmmaker to be screened at the festival. Srour cites Federico Fellini's film 8½ as a significant inspiration for the film. However, despite the film’s accolades and success at Cannes, The Hour of Liberation Has Arrived was banned in most of the Arab world for its socialist and feminist politics.

Heiny Srour (Arabic: هايني سرور, born March 23, 1945) is a Lebanese film director. She is best known for being the first female Arab filmmaker to have a film, Saat El Tahrir Dakkat or The Hour of Liberation Has Arrived, chosen for the Cannes Film Festival. Srour advocated for women's rights through her films, her writing, and by funding other filmmakers.

Born in 1945 in Beirut, Srour studied sociology at the American University in Beirut and then completed a doctorate in social anthropology at the Sorbonne. Her first film, Bread of Our Mountains (1968, 3', 16mm) was lost during the Lebanese Civil War.