Standfirst: Sink, the debut feature of Jordanian director Zain Duraie, is Jordan’s submission for Best International Feature Film at the 2027 Academy Awards, and its makers are building an awards campaign ahead of the Academy’s 15-film shortlist on December 15, The National reported.
Jordan has entered a quiet, domestic drama into one of the most competitive races in world cinema. Sink follows Nadia, played by Palestinian actress Clara Khoury, a mother who struggles to accept that her teenage son Basil, played by Mohammad Nizar, is going through a worsening mental health crisis. The Royal Film Commission said the national selection committee made its choice independently, according to The National.
Duraie told The National that she wanted to address a subject she felt Arab cinema had largely avoided. “I felt like nobody has spoken about the stigma of mental health, especially in Jordan and the Arab world,” she said. “It’s still heavily stigmatised.”
A story told through denial
The film is largely seen from Nadia’s perspective, tracing her path from protective denial to an exhausting attempt to manage her son’s crisis alone, before she accepts that he may need professional help. Basil’s condition is never named. In its review, Arab News described the film as a restrained, visually assured study and praised Khoury’s nuanced performance and Farouk Laaridh’s camerawork, while noting that the ending leaves viewers with the same uncertainty as its heroine.
Duraie uses form to mirror that journey. The picture opens in a narrow 4:3 frame and widens at a pivotal moment between mother and son, which the director described to The National as “the moment of catharsis”, though the frame never fully opens. She also took opposite approaches with her two leads: she spent three years preparing Nizar, introducing him to books and films about serious mental illness, while asking Khoury not to research the condition so she could stay close to Nadia’s uncertainty.
From Toronto to the Academy
Sink premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2025 and later screened at the BFI London and Red Sea film festivals. Duraie, a graduate of the Toronto Film School, previously directed the short Give Up the Ghost, which competed at the Venice Film Festival in 2019, and developed her first feature through workshops including the Red Sea Lodge in Saudi Arabia.
The team is preparing a campaign proposal and approaching sponsors and investors to support its awards push, Duraie said. “It is a national prestige, and it is a great step for the film and for me personally.”
A crowded Arab field
Jordan is one of several Arab entries this year. According to The National, Algeria, Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Morocco, Palestine and Saudi Arabia have also submitted films, from Lebanon’s banking-crisis heist thriller Furies to Morocco’s La Mas Dulce and Saudi Arabia’s A Matter of Life and Death. Five final nominees will be announced on January 21, and the 99th Academy Awards will be held in Los Angeles on March 14, 2027.
The bar is high. Last year, a record four Arab films made the shortlist, including Jordan’s All That’s Left of You, but only Tunisia’s The Voice of Hind Rajab went on to secure a nomination.
For Duraie, the response from audiences already matters. Parents have told her they went home and hugged their children after screenings, she said, while people living with mental illness have thanked her “for making us look human”.
