Incendies (French: [ɛ̃sɑ̃di] ⓘ; English: Fires) is a 2010 Canadian drama film directed by Denis Villeneuve, who co-wrote the screenplay with Valérie Beaugrand-Champagne.

Adapted from Wajdi Mouawad's play of the same name, Incendies stars Lubna Azabal, Mélissa Désormeaux-Poulin, Maxim Gaudette, and Rémy Girard.

The story concerns Canadian twins who travel to their mother's native country in the Levant to uncover her hidden past amidst a bloody civil war.

While the country is unnamed, the events in the film are heavily influenced by the Lebanese Civil War and particularly the story of the prisoner Souha Bechara.

Nawal's will refers to not keeping a promise, denying her a proper gravestone and casket, unless Jeanne and Simon track down their mysterious brother, whose existence they were previously unaware of, and their father, who they believed was dead.

A series of flashbacks reveal Nawal came from a Christian Arab family in an unnamed Levantine country, and that she fell in love with a refugee named Wahab, resulting in her pregnancy.

Her family murders her lover and nearly shoots her in an honor killing, but her grandmother spares her, making her promise to leave the village after the birth of her baby and start a new life in the fictional city of Daresh.

Simon meets with him, and he reveals the war-mad Nihad was captured by the nationalists, turned by them, trained as a torturer, and then sent to Kfar Ryat, where he took the name Abou Tarek, making him both the twins' half-brother and father; as such, both letters are addressed to the same person.

[5][6][7] The story is based on events that happened during the Lebanese Civil War of 1975 to 1990, but the filmmakers attempted to make the location of the plot ambiguous.

[8][9] Director Denis Villeneuve first saw Wajdi Mouawad's play Incendies at Théâtre de Quat'Sous in Montreal in 2004, commenting "I had this strong intuition that I was in front of a masterpiece".

[9] Villeneuve acknowledged unfamiliarity with Arab culture, but was drawn to Incendies as "a modern story with a sort of Greek tragedy element".

[10] In adapting the screenplay, Villeneuve, while keeping the story structure and characters, replaced "all" the dialogue, even envisioning a silent film, abandoning the idea due to expense.

[14] He finally met Lubna Azabal, a Belgian actress of Moroccan—Spanish descent[15] in Paris, intrigued by her "expressive and eloquent" face in Paradise Now (2005).

[16] Montreal actor Allen Altman, who played a notary, worked with a dialect coach for hours to develop a blend of the French and Arab accents before auditioning.

[21][22][23][24] Film critic David Ehrlich wrote that "Incendies exploits Radiohead tracks for the multiplicity of their meaning, empowering the image by dislocating viewers from it".

The site's critics consensus reads, "It's messy, overlong, and a touch melodramatic, but those flaws pale before Incendies' impressive acting and devastating emotional impact.

[37] However, Martin Morrow of CBC News was unimpressed, saying, "Villeneuve's screen adaptation strips away all this finely textured flesh and leaves only the bare bones".

[39] Authors Gada Mahrouse, Chantal Maillé and Daniel Salée wrote McCraw and Déry's films, Incendies, Monsieur Lazhar and Inch'Allah, depict Quebec as part of the global village and as accepting minorities, particularly Middle Easterners or "Muslim Others".

[40] Roger Ebert gave the film three and a half stars, saying "it wants to be much more than a thriller and succeeds in demonstrating how senseless and futile it is to hate others because of their religion", and Azabal "is never less than compelling".

[43] Ty Burr, writing for The Boston Globe, gave the film three and a half stars, praising a bus scene as harrowing but saying the climax is "a plot twist that feels like one coincidence too far", that "leaves the audience doing math on their fingers rather than reeling in shock".

[54] Incendies also won the Prix Jutra for Best Film, Director, Screenplay, Actress (Azabal), Editing, Cinematography, Art Direction, Costumes and Sound.