Filmmaker Rami Kodeih (pictured above) is set to direct bank heist Wolves, inspired by the real-life collapse of Lebanon’s banking system in 2019, with an original screenplay written by Kodeih and Nora Mariana.

Wolves takes place in Beirut during Lebanon’s economic collapse, where a young woman is unable to access her life’s savings and can’t fathom how to pay for her sister’s uterine cancer surgery. They recruit a truck driver and an ex-militia fighter to hatch a daring all-night plan to take what’s rightfully theirs from the corrupt banking system. But as their scheme escalates, so does the danger, forcing them to confront the true cost of survival, justice, and sisterhood in a city on the brink.

The project dates back to May 2020, when Kodeih and Mariana were inspired by their own savings being stuck in Lebanon during the 2019 banking crisis. The concept originated when the banks first shut off depositors and Mariana sent a DM to a friend: “Do I need to write a heist movie about me stealing my own money?” The initial story ideated more than two years before the string of Beirut bank robberies that later swept through the city.

Raised in Beirut, Rami Kodeih is a writer/director whose work has screened at the Director’s Fortnight at the Cannes Film Festival, BFI, and Clermont-Ferrand. His most recent short film Alina, starring Alia Shawkat, screened at over 250 film festivals worldwide, winning 150 festival awards. Nora Mariana is a writer, whose recent credits include the Sam Esmail-produced miniseries “Angelyne” as well as several collaborations with Kodeih on Apple’s “Little America” as well as award-winning shorts Alina and Maki & Zorro. Kodeih and Mariana have developed projects with Pablo Larraín’s Fabula, Participant Media and Alfonso Cuarón’s Esperanto Filmoj.

Executive producers include Berta Marchiori for RT Features; David Levine and Jeff Okin for Anonymous Content; and Riccardo Maddalosso for Feig Finkel LLP. Marie-Lynn Nasrallah will serve as co-executive producer, Jennifer Haddad as associate producer, and Joshua Owen as co-associate producer. The film is currently in production in Lebanon.