New Works by Amer Shomali, Sara Shazli, Amjad Al Rasheed Among Projects Selected for Cairo Film Connection
New works by Palestinian docmaker Amer Shomali (âThe Wanted 18â), emerging Egyptian filmmaker Sara Shazli (âBack Homeâ) and first-time Jordanian director Amjad Al Rasheed are among the 16 projects selected for the 9th Cairo Film Connection, the Cairo Film Festivalâs co-production platform.
The event features films from 10 countries, including five from the host nation, with 11 fiction and documentary features in development and five currently in post-production being presented to producers, distributors, sales agents and festival programmers.
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This yearâs edition received a record 135 submissions, according to incoming Cairo Film Connection manager Lynda Belkhiria, pointing toward a broader surge in production across North Africa and the Middle East. âThere is a need, there is a demand,â she said. âThere is something going on across the region.â
Many of the projects are female-led and examine the ongoing struggle of women to define themselves against the expectations of their families and societies. Still others show characters â and filmmakers â grappling with the past, examining the intersection of the personal and the political, and offering a kaleidoscopic portrait of a rapidly changing region.
The two completed narrative features looking to soon make a splash on the festival circuit include Jordanian helmer Amjad Al Rasheedâs buzzy feature debut âInshallah a Boy,â which won the top prize at the Venice Film Festivalâs Final Cut program and is also taking part in the Marrakech Film Festivalâs Atlas Workshops. The film tells the story of a mother and housewife who pretends to be pregnant after her husbandâs sudden death in order to subvert the countryâs patrilineal inheritance laws.
The other feature being presented to buyers and festival programmers in Cairo is âRed Path,â the sophomore effort from Tunisian director Lotfi Achour, which follows a young shepherd struggling to overcome trauma after a gruesome terrorist attack.
The seven features in development include Sudanese-Russian filmmaker Suzannah Mirghaniâs âCotton Queen,â which is produced by Annemarie Jacir and Caroline Daube and won the ArteKino Award at the Cannes Film Festivalâs LâAtelier this year. Set in a cotton-farming village in Sudan, the film follows teenage Nafisa as she begins to question cultural expectations and the collapsing cotton industry, under threat from pests â both insect and human.
The movie takes its title from a beauty pageant prize given to a girl working in the cotton industry during British colonial rule â a title the director seeks to reappropriate and subvert. âIn this film, I transform the concept of the Cotton Queen into one that is more reflective of a Sudanese girl awakening to her sense of self, beyond beauty and marriage, to have a real impact on her community,â said Mirghani. âThe protagonist Nafisa is part of a new generation of Sudanese girls who exceed their predicted roles as apolitical wives and mothers.â
Also being pitched is âOver Three Days,â from multihyphenate Tamer Ashry, whose 2017 debut âPhotocopyâ scooped a host of awards on the Arab film festival circuit. His sophomore feature, an off-beat comedy produced by Baho Bakhsh of Red Star, follows a woman whoâs given a three-day ultimatum to decide if she wants to remain with her husband â until she discovers heâs already engaged to another woman, who he hopes will produce the child his wife couldnât.
Ashry confessed that he saw himself in the script, as a man whoâs âbeen shaped by this patriarchal society.â âThe ideas and values implanted within me were ones which contributed to the struggle which Shireen faces, as well as my mother, sister and so many female figures in my life,â he said. After struggling with the sense that he âdidnât have the willpowerâ to fight against that structure, thatâs begun to change. âI want to be part of Shireenâs naĂŻve humane revenge against these taboos which have caused enough emotional ailments needing a whole decade to heal,â he added.
Among the documentary projects being pitched in Cairo is âSearching for Woodyâ (pictured, top), the sophomore feature from Shazli, whose first feature, âBack Home,â focused on her relationship with her father and was largely set in her family home during the pandemic. Her second film follows the director as she moves into a small apartment in the Cairo suburbs in an effort to sever the umbilical cord from her mother â the filmmaker and producer Marianne Khoury, who was the niece and collaborator of late Egyptian screen legend Youssef Chahine.
The film, which is produced by Khoury, takes its title from the eponymous Ethiopian nanny who helped raise Shazli and follows the directorâs efforts to find her after she left Egypt. âThis is a story of my childhood in Cairo with my nanny Woody, but this is kind of an excuse to talk about my relationship with my mother, which is a complex relationship,â said Shazli.
The documentary, which uses extensive archival footage, is both a âpersonalâ and âintimateâ story, she added, but also a wider exploration of motherhood. âThis film is a way of burying the painful traumas of the past in order to move forward with your life.â
Also anticipated is the latest from multi-disciplinary Palestinian artist Shomali, whose award-winning animated documentary âThe Wanted 18â premiered at Toronto. âTheft of Fireâ explores the allegedly illegal excavation of Palestinian antiquities by Israeli military leader and politician Moshe Dayan in a hybrid film project that examines the loss of cultural history by way of an action-packed, partly animated heist thriller.
The film, which is a co-production between Rashid Abdelhamid of Made in Palestine Project and Ina Fichman of Montreal-based Intuitive Pictures (âThe Wanted 18â), will use archival materials, re-enactments, and interviews (both real and CGI deep fakes).
âIt is a historical documentary, but about a story that didnât happen. The story is not real,â the director told Variety last year. âWeâre going to have interviews with Moshe Dayan and [late Israeli politician and peace activist] Uri Avnery, with Palestinians inside the prison, but the overall story of the heist itself didnât happen. But weâre going to edit the film in a way that this possibility of a heist could have happened.â
The Cairo Film Connection takes place Nov. 17 â 20. Awards will be handed out by a jury composed of Berlin International Film Festival managing director Mariette Rissenbeek, Egyptian filmmaker and curator Viola Shafik and Tunisian director Raja Amari.
Here are the projects taking part in the eventâs 9th edition:
Narrative features in development
âBad Friendâ (Egypt)
Director/producer: Ahmed El Ghoneimy
âOver Three Daysâ (Egypt)
Director: Tamer Ashry
Producer: Baho Bakhsh
âCotton Queenâ (Germany, France, Palestine)
Director: Suzannah Mirghani
Producers: Annemarie Jacir, Caroline Daube
âThe Seasons of Jannetâ (Tunisia)
Director: Mehdi Hmili
Producer: Moufida Fadhila
âHalaâs Azizâ (Saudi Arabia)
Director: Jawaher Alamri
Producer: Mohammed Sindi
âBellaâ (Morocco)
Director/producer: Mohcine Besri
âLamp in the Darkâ (Sudan)
Director/producer: Mahdi El-Tayeb
Documentaries in development
âA Butterfly Hugâ (Egypt, Sudan)
Director: Sally Abo Basha
Producer: Talal Afifi
âMy Dadâs a Farmerâ (Algeria)
Director/producer: El Kheyer Zidani
âSearching for Woodyâ (Egypt)
Director: Sara Shazli
Producer: Marianne Khoury
âTheft of Fireâ (Palestine, Canada)
Director: Amer Shomali
Producer: Rashid Abdelhamid
Narrative features in post-production
âRed Pathâ (Tunisia, France, Belgium, Poland, Qatar, Saudi Arabia)
Director: Lotfi Achour
Producers: Anissa Daoud, SĂ©bastien Hussenot
âInshallah a Boyâ (Jordan)
Director: Amjad Al Rasheed
Producers: Rula Nasser, Aseel Abuayyash
Documentaries in post-production
âLetâs Play Soldiersâ (Yemen, Qatar, U.S.)
Director: Mariam Al-Dhubani
Producer: Mohammed Al-Jaberi
âThe Last Manâ (Egypt, Brazil)
Director: Muhammad Salah
Producers: Mark Lotfy, Rodrigo Brum
âSuspendedâ (Lebanon, France, Qatar, Saudi Arabia)
Director: Myriam El Hajj
Producer: Myriam Sassine
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