Darin J. Sallam on 'Farha' Backlash: 'I Never Regretted It'

Palestinian-Jordanian filmmaker Darin J. Sallam says she has never regretted making "Farha," despite warnings that the controversy surrounding it could derail her career before it properly began. "I never questioned that decision or regretted it for a moment," Sallam told Variety from the UAE, where she serves on the narrative features jury at the 13th Sharjah International Festival for Children and Youth. "Everything that went into bringing the film to life was worth it, and its impact continues to resonate to this day."

What made 'Farha' a lightning rod?

"Farha," Sallam's debut feature, follows a Palestinian girl coming of age during the Nakba, the mass displacement and dispossession of Palestinians surrounding the creation of the state of Israel in 1948. The story was inspired by a Palestinian refugee whose account reached Sallam through her mother.

The film premiered at the Toronto Film Festival in 2021. Jordan later selected it as its submission for the international feature Oscar, and Netflix streamed it globally. The release prompted fierce backlash, particularly over a scene depicting Israeli soldiers killing a Palestinian family. Israeli officials publicly condemned the film. Sallam and others involved faced harassment and online abuse, and Sallam has been unable to travel to Palestine since the release.

The warnings came even before shooting began. "I always knew in my heart that choosing 'Farha' as my debut feature film would be an experience unlike anything I had encountered before or will encounter in the future," she said. The takeaway: the cost was real, and she counts it as fully paid.

Why personal stories anchor her cinema

Sallam builds her work on the conviction that individual lives convey history more powerfully than official accounts. "Personal stories are often the most powerful way to understand history and society," she said. "Behind every historical event, there are individual lives, emotions, struggles and dreams that deserve to be heard."

She is drawn to women's stories in particular because so many of those experiences have been "overlooked, silenced or left out of the historical narrative." In "Farha," that meant filtering the collective trauma of the Nakba through one young girl, distilling an event that transformed thousands of lives into a single character's journey.

Her credo is blunt: "If cinema is not personal, it risks becoming nothing more than slogans and history lessons. Cinema needs to emerge from a genuine human experience, from something deeply felt and lived."

What comes next: 'Churching of Women'

Sallam's second feature, "Churching of Women," returns to women and history. Set in 1938 in the Levant — present-day Palestine, Lebanon, Syria and Jordan — it follows Fadia, a pioneering female author grieving her parents who turns to her cousin for support, only to be confined against her will in a mental asylum while he seizes her inheritance.

The project took part in the Busan International Film Festival's Asian Project Market in 2025 and won the ArteKino International Award. It is now in advanced development and financing.

Sallam says the new film will let her explore injustice, grief, women supporting one another and colonial power structures in the region. "With 'Churching,' I'm exploring these on a broader, more complex scale, bringing multiple characters into the mix," she said, calling it a challenge she is "particularly excited about," given her love of working with actors.

The experience of making and releasing "Farha" is informing the process — she and her producers are weighing lessons from its production, release and distribution. What it has not done is make her more cautious. "If anything, my experience with 'Farha' has only strengthened my resolve to bring stories to the world through cinema," she said. "I cannot wait to share 'Churching of Women' with audiences."

Her jury duty in Sharjah reinforced her faith in young viewers. "They are not spectators to be underestimated because of their age," she said — a conviction that will travel with her onto the set of her next chapter.