Continuing a successful year for Arab cinema at major festivals, with films like “Once Upon a Time in Gaza,” “President’s Cake,” and “The Little Sister” winning major awards at Cannes, the Venice Film Festival also saw the voices of a select group of Arab female talents rise this year.

Notable Arab female directors shone at the 82nd Venice Film Festival, including Tunisian director Kaouther Ben Hania competing in the official selection with “The Sound of Hind Rabah,” as well as “Malaga Street” by Moroccan director Maryam Touzani and “Migration” by Saudi director Shahad Ameen in the Venice Days section, and “Cotton Queen” by Suzanne Mergui and “Ruqayya” by Yanis Koussim in the Critics’ Week.

Producer and director Mohamed Hefzy told Variety magazine commenting on this prominent presence: “Filmmakers must continue telling stories. It is wonderful that major festivals and programs select unique films from the Arab world. This is no coincidence; in times of conflict and instability, meaningful stories are produced.”

The films present diverse original stories, addressing ideas, issues, and events on the big screen. Between Palestine, Tunisia, Sudan, and Saudi Arabia, stories are told reflecting the vision of both emerging and veteran female directors in major festivals like Kaouther Ben Hania, whose name has become synonymous with meticulous craftsmanship.

Kaouther presents a moving story from the heart of Gaza titled “The Sound of Hind Rabah,” recounting the killing of the child Hind Rabah by Israeli occupation forces through archival recordings and images. Director Jehan Mansour tells her father’s story in a long documentary titled “My Father and Gaddafi,” using family archives, official documents, and interviews to reconstruct the political climate of that time and trace her father’s steps through that moment.

From Morocco, director Maryam Touzani participates with the film “Malaga Street,” set in the Spanish coastal city of Malaga, about an elderly Spanish woman in Tangier who resists her daughter’s decision to sell her house, insisting on staying and striving to preserve her home and reclaim lifelong possessions. On her journey, she rediscovers love and desire.

Young director Shahad Ameen attempts to tell expressive stories about her Saudi environment, presenting the developing country in cinema as an integral part of global storytellers with her feature film “Migration,” which follows a woman deciding to leave her familiar environment and embark on a different journey. This is not the first time Shahad Ameen’s films have been shown in Venice; her film “Scales” was screened in Critics’ Week in 2019.