Looking for Oum Kulthum relates the story of Mitra, an Iranian film director living in exile, who embarks on her dream project of making a film about the legendary Egyptian singer and diva Oum Kulthum. Throughout her movie, Mitra explores the struggles, sacrifices and the price of Oum Kulthum's success as a female artist in a male dominated society.

However, having left her family behind for her career and in her efforts to capture the essence of Oum Kulthum as a myth, a woman and an artist, Mitra's own struggles blend with those of the singer and she finds herself caught in an emotional and artistic breakdown.
It is "a film within a film", where the boundaries of fiction and reality become increasingly blurred.

Commenting on the film, Neshat says: For the past twenty years, as a visual artist and a filmmaker, I have explored diverse concepts and narratives in relation to Muslim women. In 2009, I directed my first feature film Women Without Men, based on a magical realist novel written by the Iranian female author, Shahrnush Parsipur.

Continuing with my obsession with female strength and artistic expression in the Muslim world, since 2010, I have been developing this feature film project based on the art and life of the legendary Egyptian singer Oum Kulthum (1900–1975), whose music and larger-than-life persona has and continues to be embedded in the hearts and imaginations of millions of Middle Easterners.