Gheed — an exuberant, intelligent and very funny actress so clearly destined for international fame — has, like all the greats, jettisoned her surname. Audiences at Director’s Fortnight will get a taste of the Gheed experience when she arrives with her feature-film debut, Atonement . The first film from American director Reed Van Dyk , and based on a true story, it features Gheed as Nora, an Iraqi girl who loses her father and two brothers during a friendly-fire incident in Baghdad. Playing opposite her is Boyd Holbrook, who stars as Lou, a U.S. Marine who is later wracked with guilt and decides to reach out.

It came about by sheer good fortune, Gheed says, after a chance meeting with an Iraqi director at a film festival in Jordan. “Out of nowhere, he called me up,” she recalls. “He said, ‘There’s an American director that wants to do a film about Iraq and he’s looking for an Iraqi actress.’ I got in touch, and from then onward, I stayed in contact with Reed. I fell in love with the story.…