Best Director 2021 Winner

Shakwa

Hoda, a veiled woman, enters a police station in Beirut to submit a claim of rape. After being questioned thoroughly, she admits to the police officers that it is her husband who is abusing her. The officer at the station is surprised and somehow amused to hear this and quickly dismisses her request since it is not against the law. Nevertheless, Hoda insists and claims that he has also been physically violent, which grasps the officers' interest since the case turned into domestic violence, which is punishable by law. The officers ask her to provide them with proof of violence, get a report from a legal doctor, which costs 200 USD, so she can submit a proper claim. Since she doesn't have that kind of money, she decides to leave the station. The moment she decided to go, the officers ask her to show them her ID card for a standard background check. She provides them with what they had requested, not knowing that they will find old unpaid parking tickets in her name that have accumulated to become 200,000 LBP with the penalties. She denies having a car up until they clear the model, which turned out to be a car her husband brought supposedly for her, but then he never let her drive it and then sold it back. She begs them to let her go since she doesn't have the money, and is too scared to call her husband, but they persist in saying to her that she cannot leave before paying the penalties. Every option she has will lead to an even more problematic domestic environment.