I watched Rabia at the opening screening of the 2nd edition of the Incredible Film Festival and left the theater in silence. With that heavy silence, full of thought. It’s a film that doesn’t shout. It murmurs. It presses. It leaves its mark.
Inspired by the true story of Moroccan Faitha Mejjati (the feared Oum Adam), Mareike Engelhardt’s feature film, in her directorial debut, delves into one of the least explored (and most frightening) aspects of the Daesh regime: the madafas, houses where young Western women, converted and indoctrinated, waited to become wives of the fighters.
We follow Jessica, a young French woman, who trades the promise of freedom for an invisible cell in Raqqa. Initially dazzled by the promise of belonging and faith, she soon finds herself in the hands of Madame (played by Lubna Azabal), a charismatic, fanatical, and cruel figure. A true ruler of silence, manipulation, and female erasure.
The film succeeds in avoiding sensationalism: it doesn’t show the violence directly, but it’s there: in the muffled noises, the locked doors, the averted glances. The staging uses the off-screen as an aesthetic and emotional weapon. Sound, silence, and the marks on the body and soul speak louder than any dialogue. Mereike Engelhardt understands the power of the unsaid, and it is in this unspokenness that the horror grows.
Agnès Godard’s cinematography is another highlight: claustrophobic when necessary, ethereal at times, it visually accompanies Jessica’s transformation (and deformation): from a young idealist to someone torn apart and shaped by pain. David Chalmin’s soundtrack, tenuous and unsettling, reinforces this dark spiral.
But perhaps Rabia’s greatest achievement is the script. It doesn’t explain, it doesn’t patronize, it doesn’t judge. It observes. It denounces. And it invites us to reflect. Women seeking a new life, an identity, end up finding the opposite: submission, surveillance, erasure.
And there’s a cruel twist: the cycle of violence perpetuates itself. Jessica becomes Oum Rabia (“rage”), and the victim begins to reproduce what she suffered. The turning point is dry, unassuming, and therefore so devastating.
Rabia is, yes, harsh. But necessary. An almost unprecedented portrait of these women-run prisons, where other women were trained, molded, and often destroyed. And it’s also a reminder: even today, many of these girls remain imprisoned in the Al-Hol refugee camp, living in the aftermath of extremism.
In the end, the film offers no easy answers, but a glimmer of hope. And the question that remains, echoing after the credits, is: how many other Jessicas are still out there, believing they are being saved, when in fact they are being silenced?
You can find Rabia in theaters starting August 21st.
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