The Hour of Liberation Has Arrived (1974)

The Dhofar War is one of those conflicts that barely registers in the Western popular imagination, despite Britain's direct military involvement. Between 1963 and 1976, a leftist guerrilla movement known as the Popular Front for the Liberation of the Occupied Arabian Gulf took up arms against the Sultan of Oman, whose regime was propped up by British forces and, later, Iranian troops. The struggle combined anti-imperialist politics with a remarkably progressive social programme, including the active recruitment and education of women fighters, which made it something of an anomaly in the revolutionary movements of the era. It was also, to put it plainly, a war that the British government had every reason to keep quiet, and so it largely did. That a Lebanese filmmaker, working independently, managed to document it from the inside remains a genuinely striking fact of film history.

Heiny Srour was in her early thirties when she and a small crew made the journey into the conflict zone, covering some 500 miles of desert and mountain terrain on foot and under aerial bombardment by the Royal Air Force. The resulting film, running just 64 minutes and produced through her own outfit Srour Films in association with French and British co-producers, is one of the earliest feature documentaries by an Arab woman director. It was shot on 16mm, the format of choice for documentary filmmakers working in difficult or dangerous conditions throughout the 1970s (think of the contemporaneous wave of political cinema coming out of Latin America and parts of Africa), and it received its share of attention on the international festival circuit at the time before fading into relative obscurity for decades. Srour would go on to make a further fiction feature, Leila and the Wolves, though for many years this debut remained the more widely discussed of the two works. The credited cast listing includes Youssef Salman Youssef, though as with many documentaries of the period the line between subject and performer is not really the point.

Placing this film alongside other French co-productions of the period that pushed against comfortable viewing habits, such as Little by Little (1970) and Sugar Cane Alley (1983), gives a useful sense of the broader tradition it belongs to: politically engaged, formally unpolished but purposeful, and concerned with voices that mainstream cinema routinely left out. It also sits naturally alongside other documentaries from the decade that prioritised access and authenticity over production comfort, a quality that connects it to some of the rawer non-fiction work I have covered here before, including Nom Tèw (2009), which shares that same quality of bearing witness to a community under pressure.

The Hour of Liberation Has Arrived (1974), directed by Lebanese filmmaker Heiny Srour, is a groundbreaking and fiercely political documentary that captures the revolutionary struggle in Dhofar, Oman (a conflict largely ignored by Western media but rendered here with urgent intimacy and unflinching clarity). Shot on guerrilla-style 16mm film during active combat, the documentary follows the Popular Front for the Liberation of the Occupied Arabian Gulf (PFLOAG) as they fight against British/US-backed Omani monarchy forces, with a particular focus on the women who took up arms, organized communities, and redefined gender roles in the heart of a Marxist-inspired liberation movement. What makes this film extraordinary is its access and perspective. Srour (often the only woman on the front lines) embeds herself with fighters, medics, and political educators, capturing raw, unfiltered moments: women debating ideology under desert stars, soldiers tending crops between battles, children learning to read in mountain caves. The footage is grainy, sometimes shaky, but pulsing with authenticity. No sanitized framing, just the voices of those living revolution, especially the female combatants who speak with conviction about freedom, dignity, and the right to shape their own future. While the pacing can feel uneven and the historical context assumes some prior knowledge, the film’s power lies in its immediacy and moral clarity. It’s not just a record of war, it’s a testament to feminist resistance in one of the most conservative regions of the world, decades before such narratives entered mainstream discourse. A vital, courageous document of anti-colonial struggle and women’s agency in the Middle East. Raw, passionate, and historically significant. Not just a film, but an act of solidarity. Essential viewing for anyone interested in decolonial cinema, feminist history, or the untold stories of 20th-century revolution.

What stays with me after watching this is less any single image and more the cumulative weight of knowing what it cost to make it. Films like this one remind me why documentary cinema, at its best, is something more than journalism and something less tidy than art, operating in a space where the camera itself becomes a political act. The unevenness that comes with 16mm footage grabbed under fire is not a flaw to apologise for; it is the whole point. I will admit the film demands patience and a reasonable amount of background reading if you want to follow every strand of the political argument, but that feels like a fair trade for what it gives you in return. Some films sit on a shelf. This one knocks it over.

Rating: Not rated  | Year: 1974  | Watched: 2026-03-09

View on Letterboxd →

Where to watch

Watch in the US
Stream: OVID
Physical: Amazon US

Affiliate disclosure: Movies With Macca may earn a small commission on purchases or subscriptions started via these links. It costs you nothing extra.

Related on Movies With Macca

More from France: Fantastic Planet (1973) · Letter from Siberia (1957) · Lessons of Darkness (1992) · Here and Elsewhere (1976)
More from the 1970s: Fantastic Planet (1973) · Here and Elsewhere (1976) · Italianamerican (1974) · Punishment Park (1971)
More documentary: Letter from Siberia (1957) · Lessons of Darkness (1992) · Style Wars (1983) · Here and Elsewhere (1976)