Looking for Oum Kulthum

With intricate storytelling and exquisite imagery, Iranian artist and filmmaker Shirin Neshat captivates with a film-within-a-film about Oum Kulthum, ‘the voice of Egypt’. Neshat sidesteps any attempt at a linear biopic and instead confronts Kulthum's meaning and magnitude through the lens of another artist trying to tell her story.

Mitra, an exiled Iranian director, is striving to make a biopic about the international icon. Her dilemmas mirror those of her subject as she learns about the sacrifices Kulthum has made to succeed in a male dominated world.

Filmography: Women without Men (2009),