Egypt

A passive mother who dedicates her life to her husband and children. Stuck in daily, repetitive, mundane chores, she has made herself as little as she possibly could. When a magic trick goes wrong at her 4-year-old son’s birthday party, an avalanche of coincidental absurdities befalls the family. The magician turns her husband, the authoritarian father, into a chicken. The mother is now forced to come to the fore and take care of the family while moving heaven and earth to bring her husband back. As she tries to survive, she goes through a rough and absurd transformation.Read More »

Synopsis:
Souad, a 19-year-old young woman, leads a double life. While remaining conservative and veiled among her family and society, Souad is obsessed with her image on social media and goes into several secret virtual relationships with men. She constantly lies about her personal life, projecting wishful images of a different desired life. Her ambitions are slowly crushed by the invasion of her true reality. A series of small incidents lead to a tragic event, that makes Rabab, her 13-year-old little sister, embarks on a real-life journey looking for answers.Read More »

Quote:
Featuring a legendary ensemble from the classic age of Egyptian Cinema, starring Naguib El-Rihani, who’s probably had the most influence on theatre and comedy in the Middle East even close to a century from his death, with only eight films in production before an untimely death during filming Ghazl al-banat. The beautiful Jewish singer, Layla Murad, Youssef Wahby, and the musical prodigy of Mohamed Abdel-Wahab, the most celebrated composer of the time. A heartwarming comedy from a bygone era.Read More »

Telematch Sadat re-stages the 1981 military parade, assassination, and funeral of Egyptian President Anwar Al Sadat—the event which ushered in the dictatorship of Hosni Mubarak—with a cast of Bedouin children. Donkeys and carts stand in for armored vehicles, while the desert substitutes for downtown Cairo.Read More »

Wael Shawky presents his epic video trilogy that recounts the history of The Crusades from an Arab perspective. Inspired by The Crusades Through Arab Eyes by Lebanese historian Amin Maalouf, Shawky’s videos chart the numerous European campaigns to the Holy Land, starting from the early Crusades from 1096–1099 A.D. that are depicted in CABARET CRUSADES: THE HORROR SHOW FILES (2010) and the First and Second Crusades from 1099–1145 A.D. in CABARET CRUSADES: THE PATH TO CAIRO (2012).Read More »

Starring Ahmed Zaki and Mervat Amin, the film’s importance comes from it’s storyline written by Raouf Tawfik, it discusses a bold and sensitive subject for Middle Eastern societies, the concept of power and it’s relationship with the individual. The films that have discussed this subject in earnest are rare and in between especially in Egyptian cinema, because of censorship and intimidation, and even the films that have previously discussed the issue of authority and power abuse have only touched it from a political view, ignoring the psychological aspects.
The wife of an Important man stands in opposition to this school of thought.
In the film, we are shown two of the most important characters in Khan’s filmography.Read More »

Mona, a well off widow and working mother, is struggling to raise her six children of different ages ranging from elementary school to university graduating students and all with names beginning in ‘M.’ When she decides to bring home a new husband, she faces a number of challenges. One of the best loved Egyptian classics, on the surface ‘Empire of M’ is a family drama but beneath this story is a call for political liberalism and women’s rights during the Sadat era. The film is based on a novel by Ihsan Abd al-Qudus (‘The Belly Dancer and the Politician’), adapted for the screen by the Egyptian Nobel Laureate Naguib Mahfouz, and features Hussein Kamal (‘The Virgin and the White Hair’) directing a cast led by ‘the First Lady of Arab Cinema’ Faten Hamama (‘The Nightingale’s Prayer’) in an award winning role.Read More »

Naïve young Muhasab is asked to accompany his more dependable friend, Mujahed, on a voyage up the Nile to Cairo. Once there, they will sell their boat, the “Bride of the Nile,” in order to buy a barge that will make their village elders more competitive in business and trade. But a ruthless business rival is determined to see that the men never reach Cairo. Matters become even more complicated when Nargis, a scheming carnival dancer, is discovered hiding out in the cargo hold of the “Bride of the Nile.” Starring Omar Sharif in one of his most complex roles, this sensual and atmospheric classic of Egyptian cinema is set on a Nile boat where the conflict between two men is ignited by a seductive gypsy who marries one man but loves the other. Atef Salem directs tour de force performances by Sharif, Rushdi Abaza and Hind Rostom. Ranked #36 on the list of 100 Best Egyptian Films 1933-2007 compiled by a team of Egyptian film critics and published in the Al-Ahram Weekly newspaper.Read More »

In one of their best roles ever, distinguished actors Nour al Sherif and Saad Hosni star in this overwhelming movie which witnesses the unstable social and political life in Egypt during the late 60s and early 70s of the last century. The lives of a group of university students are turned upside down because of their talks about the political instability the country was going through at the time. While some of the students managed to recover, others have been doomed and fought for their lives. Based on the novel of the same name by Naguib Mahfouz!Read More »