Palestinian Director Laila Abbas on Making a Comedy About Sharia Law With ‘Thanks for Banking With Us!’

Throughout the history of cinema, comedy has long proven fertile territory for filmmakers to explore sensitive issues. With “Thanks for Banking With Us!,” playing as part of the Meet the Neighbors competition at the Thessaloniki Film Festival, Palestinian director Laila Abbas approaches Islamic Sharia law through the tale of two sisters racing against time to secure their father’s inheritance.

Under Islamic Sharia law, men have the right to twice as much inheritance as women following the death of a relative—if a man has no sons, uncles and cousins take priority over daughters. In Abbas’s third feature, sisters Noura (Yasmine Al Massri) and Maryam (Clara Khoury) need to get crafty to ensure their absent brother doesn’t benefit from the passing of a father he hadn’t seen in years while the two continue to financially struggle.

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“I’m not afraid to talk about it,” Abbas told Variety when asked if she felt any trepidation in broaching the topic of inheritance law. “I thought about every detail: how can I present this story in such a way that I engage people in conversation without repelling them right away? If I used a different approach, it might have felt offensive and I would have alienated a large part of my audience.”

“Don’t get me wrong,” Abbas continued, “it can be powerful to be radical but I felt like the light tone of the film didn’t allow for it. I wanted to engage as many people as possible so they could watch the film all the way to the end and imagine themselves wearing the sisters’ shoes.”

Despite being critical of her country’s patriarchal structure, Abbas is quick to emphasize she does not want anybody watching the film to think she “set out to criticize my people as if the West is the model to follow.” “I am very critical of the West and I love my country, which is why I’ve made this film, to have a conversation amongst ourselves and our society about what we aspire to be and how we need to evolve into something that looks like us.”

Abbas first broke out with 2013’s “Ice & Dust,” a documentary about a young Palestinian woman who searches for a better life in Canada. For her sophomore feature, the filmmaker opted for comedy in the hopes of portraying an authentic Palestinian story that was not rooted in loss or tragedy. This was, of course, before the Oct. 7 attacks that triggered a still-escalating conflict in the region.

“I am presenting a film I find funny at festivals across the world and it’s very difficult because I feel that I need to be talking about what is happening in the world right now,” said the director. “How can I make it work with the tonal dichotomy? It’s morally hard for me and I feel like I need to introduce the film and say we shot it before the war. I am not ashamed to tell a story that isn’t about the war but there is something happening right now that is much more important than my film and I need to talk about it.”

The director is proud of how she portrayed Palestinians and life in Palestine in “Thanks for Banking With Us!,” and highlights the work of her costume and production design teams, who worked tirelessly to create tangible spaces and characters. “I wanted the film to portray a real family, real houses, things that don’t feel strange or fake for those who know what it feels like to live in Palestine.”

“We visited many houses and that’s not easy back home because we don’t have a cinema culture, so people are not used to film shoots happening in their homes. People will say yes and then freak out when dozens of people show up in their apartments. One of our biggest challenges is that we had agreed with a local bank to shoot at their branch, signed contracts, and two days before the shoot they called us and said their legal team had concerns and they were backing out.”

The solution? To rush to the neighboring university and recreate a bank within their common spaces. “It’s not easy to shoot in Palestine, but we got creative. We freaked out, of course, but it all worked out in the end.”

When discussing what she would like audiences to take away from the film, Abbas is quick to say she wants viewers to “take a glimpse into our life with all its complexities and beauty as well. I wanted to dedicate 95 minutes to Palestine entirely. There is so much invading our screens right now, and I wanted to have a film where Palestinians shine.”