As we previously reported, the 2019 Locarno Film Festival kicked off last week with Ginevra Elkann’s feature directorial debut “Magari.” This week’s festival screenings include “Baghdad in My Shadow,” an ensemble drama featuring Iraqi actress Zahraa Ghandour as an Iraqi woman searching for a fresh start in London. Now, Variety reports, Ghandour is moving behind the camera with a documentary on Iraqi women’s rights activist Hanaa Edwar.

Edwar, now in her mid-70s, has been fighting for Iraqi human rights since the 1960s. Though she fled the country during Saddam Hussein’s rule, she returned in 2003 and has continued her work ever since. She is the co-founder and chair of the Iraqi Al-Amal Association and the co-founder of the Iraqi Women’s Network.

Ghandour’s documentary will focus on the fight for women’s governmental inclusion and will shoot in Baghdad, Basra, Kurdistan, Damascus, Beirut, Berlin, and Moscow.

“I decided that my first independent film should be about something I fully believe in, so I chose a woman that has inspired me for many years,” Ghandour explained. “What I want to show in the film is Hanaa the woman, because people already know what she’s talking about, but they don’t know who she is. I think it’s very important for Iraqis to know her story, to know her as a person, and of course for the rest of the world.”

Ghandour previously starred as a potential suicide bomber in Mohamed Jabarah Al-Daradji’s 2017 drama “The Journey.” The film premiered at the 2017 Toronto Film Festival and was Iraq’s entry for the Academy Awards’ best foreign-language film.

“Baghdad in My Shadow” marks Ghandour’s second feature film and explores homosexuality, religious extremism, and women’s rights. It is currently screening out of competition at Locarno.