Rabia: trailer for the shock film about the jihad widow

Megan Northam (Greek Salad) becomes radicalized.

It’s at Grand Huit Films, a small indie laboratory to which we already owed Disco Boy (2023), and Cannes success The Ghosts (2024), which saw the light of day Rabiathe first feature film of Mareike Engelhart. Nothing in his short films had announced a subject such as the exile to Syria of European nationals destined to marry jihadists. But that was without counting on the expertise of two major actresses: Lubna Azabalseen in The Blue of the caftan (2022) and Meghan Northamthe revelation of Greek saladthe series derived from The Spanish Inn.

The French thriller was full of red carpets, presented in competition at the Angoulême Francophone Film Festival and awarded an award at Deauville, just in time for its release in December. Behind a statement which will undoubtedly achieve consensus, there also seem to be two large portraits of women.

In this first trailer which firstly sets out its geographical setting, in Raqqa in Syria, in quasi-documentary images, the argument is quickly made about the documented film, between psychological thriller and careful reconstruction of living conditions in a “madafa”, these disciplinary houses run by women and locking up women, before their marriage by assignment with members of Daesh. Supported among others by Eurimages, the film offers a look at the domination of women by women within the Islamic State organization.

The first promising images therefore announce a precise and methodical look, which Première had already been able to appreciate in Angoulême, on a figure of radicalization in the Islamic State, Malika El-Aroud, nicknamed the Black Widow of jihad.

This face-to-face meeting in a disciplinary environment therefore engages in the sociological angle of feminine radicalization, thereby resuming the mastery of Ghostswhich convinced at Cannes and in cinemas this summer with an equally introspective angle. But it also promises, we hope, a big pas de deux between an established actress, Lubna Azabal, who could shine through the psychology of a domestic despot, and especially Meghan Northam, an inspired young debutant who has already had the shoulders for a Klapisch and two enchanting French indies… and all that in 2024!

“Lubna Azabal hasn’t let go of me since Fires. The depth of her gaze, the distance that she establishes through her acting, the authority, the mystery that she exudes despite the softness of her physique. I only saw her for the role of Madame. She knew the story of ‘Oum Adam’ which she has been following for years and which fascinates her as much as I do.”

With such a description of her actress by Mareike Hengelhart, we hope that the pair will be able to live up to the detonation of Villeneuve’s drama! Answer in theaters on December 4.