Leila and The Wolves is an experimental and feminist film that explores the overlooked roles of Lebanese and Palestinian women in resistance movements, using a non-linear narrative to reclaim their voices from historical and patriarchal erasure. Filmmaker Heiny Srour wastes no time disputing geopolitics or softening her language. Despite its shifts between symbolism and realism, her film leaves no ambiguity about its political values. The women characters are focused on the immediate threat of war, striving for liberation through their acts of radical domesticity.

The narrative spans different historical periods, including the Palestinian resistance movement, and emphasises how women have been essential to the fight for colonial libration. Globally, women’s contributions to anti-colonial movements are often sidelined, which is challenged by Srour through her fictional re-enactments of scenes of grassroots resistance. These efforts involve the subversion of traditional gender roles as part of their militant practice. In one striking example—also depicted in Gillo Pontecorvo’s The Battle of Algiers (1966)—women hide weaponry under their abayas. The film’s portrayal of feminist resistance is distinctly collective and community-driven, as it moves through real and imagined landscapes across Lebanon, Palestine, and their diasporas from the early 1900s to the 1980s.

Leila and The Wolves critiques not only colonial power structures but also the patriarchal narratives within nationalist movements. Srour's depiction of women's resistance extends beyond physical acts of defiance to include the emotional labor and communal bonds formed in domestic spaces, showcasing the radical potential of what may seem like everyday activities within the confines of the living room and kitchen. Moreover, the film also engages with the concept of diasporic identity, as it traverses various geographic and temporal landscapes. Srour’s portrayal of Lebanese and Palestinian women is not confined to a location but emphasises the fluidity of identity in the context of displacement and diaspora, resonating across borders and generations.

Leila looks at her young face in a mirror and wonders, Will this war ever end?

She is searching for an answer, which stares back at her in the mirror.

The film formalises the ever-growing collective memory of feminist history through dream sequences, documentary-like inflections and archival reconstructions. Sources range from the films of Mai Masri to material from the Imperial War Museum in London. Information on the plight of women in early 20th century Palestine was derived from the writings of Khadijah Abu Ali. The fake Palestinian marriage in the film was based on information from Samir Nimr, an Iraqi who worked at the Palestine Film Unit of the PLO. The Lebanese stories came from readers’ letters in the daily newspaper L’Orient-Le Jour during the Lebanese Civil War (1975–1990). Lebanese writers Raja Nehme and Mai Ghoussoub provided further information, the latter lost an eye during the civil war.

The production of the film was as political as its imagery, shot under the looming threat of the aforementioned civil war. Due to the risks of filming in Beirut at night, cameraman Charlet Recors narrowly avoided death by stray bullet. Srour even had to pay snipers to secure footage for the closing scene in the ruins of a Beirut market. Filming in Syria was essential for the Palestinian part, as Palestine was part of Syria before the 1916 Sykes-Picot Agreement, which split the region under European mandates. The many anecdotes of Leila and the Wolves’ production adds to its lore and contributes to a wider culture of storytelling underpinning the history of a people’s resistance.