Amjad Al-Rasheed’s debut feature is making history as the country’s first-ever film selected for Cannes.

The story of a widow who pretends she’s pregnant with a boy in order to keep a roof over her head sounds like the basis for some sort of black, Handmaid’s Tale-inspired comedy set in a bleak dystopian future. But in Amjad Al-Rasheed’s Jordanian drama Inshallah A Boy — bowing in the Cannes Critics’ Week [and shot by Kanamé Onoyama, AFC] it’s much closer to home.

Delving into a rather thorny issue in the Arab world, the film follows Nawal, a mother and housewife whose husband suddenly dies unexpectedly, pitting her and her daughter against Jordan’s archaic patriarchal inheritance laws. Simply put, because Nawal doesn’t have a son, her husband’s family is entitled to most of her belongings, including her home (which she paid for herself).

Read more here on Hollywood Reporter.