LOVE ME, LOVE ME NOT

Directed & Written by Leila Sahir
Feature Narrative | 80 min | Dutch | Netherlands

Saturday, September 27th, 2025 | 2:00PM Screening
Neighborhood House at Christ Church
20 N. American Street, Philadelphia, PA 19106

Love Me, Love Me Not is a witty coming-of-age dramedy about Ines, a 27-year-old poet who navigates life with her unfiltered erotica and sharp humor. She lives with her best friend Maha, a stable counterpart in their dynamic friendship. Ines lives for the night, literature, and fleeting sexual encounters, with her poems mostly focusing on the freedom of her escapades. From the director: “In the current film climate, there is a significant lack of media that provides a realistic portrayal of sexual abuse and its potential consequences.  In over 80% of women with a sex addiction, the cause lies in a history of sexual abuse. That is why I deliberately chose to make the main character, Ines, an independent, funny woman with a strong need for fleeting sexual encounters, who has buried her trauma deeply and does not recognize it as trauma.

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Director’s Bio

Leila Sahir
Director/Writer

Leila studied directing at LUCA School of Arts in Brussels and screenwriting at the Netherlands Film Academy. She wrote the script for the short film Laatste Rit (Edson da Conceicao, 2020), which was featured at the IFFR, among others. In 2021, she made her directorial debut with her short film Maysa. The film, created as part of De Ontmoeting, premiered at the Netherlands Film Festival and won the Best Film award at the VERS Film Festival. Leila was the head screenwriter for the series SiHAME, in which a young woman seeks revenge after an intimate video of her is unintentionally spread.

Leila’s stories are diverse in a way that goes beyond the current buzzword. Her characters are rich in qualities and flaws, acting in ways that surprise and inspire us. Her work is marked by a curiosity about the complexity of people, what drives them, and how they become who they are.

“If you obey all the rules,
you miss all the fun.”

Katherine Hepburn

Actor