Projects in development
Chentian
Synopsis
Thirty-eight and still single, Waleed lives with his mother in a remote Palestinian village. Desperate to marry him off, she finds Shams, his dream woman—but her parents insist that her elder, less-desirable sister Nabila must marry first. To secure both marriages, Waleed’s younger brother Saeed, only 23, is forced to marry Nabila. The two couples share a small house and an uneasy silence until tragedy strikes: Saeed dies in a tractor accident. Alone and grieving, Nabila becomes obsessed with Waleed, and desires she never knew are awakened. When he rejects her, she retaliates, causing an accident that leaves him bedridden. As Shams is now pregnant, Nabila takes charge of the farm, discovering power and independence. But jealousy drives her to betray Waleed after he accidentally kills a guard during a land dispute. Later, with Waleed in prison and Shams raising a child, the sisters finally reconcile, working the land side by side.
Odeh Films (Palestine)
Mayana Films (Germany)
May Odeh
Lena Zimmerhackel
(Germany)
Director’s statement
Chentian explores the impossible contradictions of being both a woman and Palestinian. Under occupation and patriarchy, female identity and sexuality are silenced: deferred until after “national liberation.” In this world, love, desire, and the body are bound by shame, control, and fear. Virginity defines value, widowhood becomes a life sentence, and divorce marks a woman as prey. Yet beneath these social prisons, an inner world burns, filled with longing, imagination, and defiance. Through the story of two sisters whose fates are tied together by marriage, loss, and forbidden desire, Chentian reveals the quiet rebellion of women reclaiming their bodies and voices. It is a story about survival in a culture that denies female agency, and about the radical act of self-discovery in the face of oppression. Chentian brings together two worlds—the visible and the hidden—to ask: what happens when a woman dares to live as herself?
Biographies
Suha Arraf is a Palestinian filmmaker, screenwriter, and producer celebrated for her bold, character-driven storytelling. She began her career writing the award-winning films The Syrian Bride (2004) and Lemon Tree (2008), both of which won acclaim at major international festivals. Her directorial debut, Villa Touma, was selected for the Venice International Film Festival in 2014. Arraf’s work explores identity, tradition, and resistance through complex female characters, and has established her as a leading voice in contemporary Palestinian and Arab independent cinema.
May Odeh is an award-winning Palestinian producer and filmmaker, founder of Odeh Films in Palestine, and co-founder of Berlin-based Mayana Films together with Zorana Mušikić. Her production credits include Aisha Can’t Fly Away (2025), which was presented in Un Certain Regard at the Festival de Cannes; A Useful Ghost (2025), which won the Grand Prize in La Semaine de la Critique at Cannes; and Rakan Mayasi’s The Passport (2025), which was presented at La Fabrique Cinéma. Named MENA Talent of the Year 2020 by Variety, she also produced 200 Meters (2020), Hanging Gardens (2022), and Thousand Fires (2021), and curates the Palestinian Film Platform.
AFAC
