“17” follows the Jordanian under-17 women’s football team as they prepare for the FIFA U-17 Women’s World Cup Jordan 2016. Coming from different backgrounds, each of the girls has faced a different set of challenges as a national team player. But now they come together to face their biggest challenge yet. “17” is a social exploration into the lives of young women who are passionate about a sport they have been told was only for men. Will Anoud make it in the final squad? Will Leen be ready to play in this world-class event with so little time to prepare? Will the odds finally start working for the team?

An independent woman, Noura is raising her three children alone, working in a hospital laundry to make ends meet. While her husband Jamel is back in jail, she meets Lassad, the love of her life. Forced to hide their relationship – if it were discovered, they would face 5 years in prison – Noura petitions for divorce but just days before it is granted, the lovers’ dream of a life together is threatened by Jamel’s imminent release. The series of absurdities caused by Jamel’s attempt to revenge on two, shows how the law and institution of Tunisia can make a woman’s life miserable. Instead making Noura a vulnerable victim, Boujemaa describes her as an emotional but strong-willed woman with a sense of reality. It gives the film a wide distinction from love triangle dramas.

Set in a dystopian landscape, “Scales” is the story of a young strong-willed girl, Hayat, who lives in a poor fishing village governed by a dark tradition in which every family must give one daughter to the sea creatures who inhabit the waters nearby. In turn the sea creatures are hunted by the men of the village. Saved from this fate by her father, Hayat is considered a curse on the village and grows up an outcast. Nevertheless, she does not surrender to this fate and fights for a place within her village. After her mother gives birth to a baby boy, Hayat must accept the brutal custom of giving herself to the sea creatures or finding a way to escape.

Maryam is and ambitious young doctor working in a small town clinic. Despite her qualifications, she has to earn the respect of male colleagues and acceptance from her patients every day. After Maryam is prevented from traveling to Dubai in search of a better job, a bureaucratic mixup leads her to stumble on the application for her local city elections and she decides to run. Maryam enlists her two younger sisters to begin fundraising and planning campaign events. While they face the restriction of women’s traditional roles in the society at every turn, Maryam’s audacious candidacy starts to build momentum and challenges her conservative community.

Algeria, 1990s. Nedjma, an 18 year-old student passionate about fashion design refuses to let the tragic events of the Algerian Civil War to keep her from experiencing a normal life and going out at night with her friend Wassila. As the social climate becomes more conservative, she rejects the new bans set by the radicals and decides to fight for her freedom and independence by putting on a fashion show. The fashion show Nadjma prepares is not only a way of pursuing her personal dream but a strong statement against the social inhibition. Based on the director Mounia Meddour’s own experience of growing up during Algerian Civil War, the story depicts the sad reality as well as the heart-warming friendship among the girls in a sensitive and brave way.