An omnibus of women-directed Saudi shorts that acts as a calling card for the diversity of rising talent in the Kingdom, offering five largely strong entries highlighting the ways women negotiate traditional female and non-female spaces.
43rd Cairo International Film Festival
12/01/2021
Festival Reviews
Death of a Virgin and the Sin of Not Living
The fears and longings of four Lebanese boys on their way to lose their virginity is conveyed in interior monologues in George Peter Barbari’s poignant and deeply original first film.
The Stranger
Palestine’s 2022 Oscar submission is a brooding story of lives in limbo in the Golan Heights, stunningly shot and wrenching in its moving evocation of a man mired in self-loathing and paralyzed by the physical and existential no-man’s land resulting in the Israeli occupation and the disaster in Syria.
Diary of Gabrielle Street
Rashid Masharawi’s upbeat lockdown documentary set in Montmartre is a one man show full of charm and humanity.
A Second Life
A well-calibrated debut with a fine central performance, weaving together notions of class and familial betrayal when an impoverished mother sells her son’s kidney to a well-off family in exchange for a better life.
Tomorrow
In the bitter drama of a human rights lawyer struggling with mental illness, well-known actor Dhafer L’Abidine directs, produces and stars in a passionate plea to Tunisians to reclaim their revolution.
Daughters of Abdulrahman
Predictably stereotyped characterizations still deliver some enjoyable moments in this female empowerment story that unfortunately also plays to the region’s homophobia but will be a crowd-pleaser in the Arab world.
Awards Corner
Cairo
- Golden Pyramid for
The Hole in the Fence (Mexico, Poland)
Director: Joaquin del Paso - Fipresci Award for Best Film
Tomorrow (Tunisia)
Director: Dhafer L’Abidine - Silver Pyramid for
Small Body (Italy, France, Slovenia)
Director: Laura Samani - Bronze Pyramid for
Aloners (South Korea)
Director: Hong Seong-eun - Award for
A Chiara (Italy, France)
Swamy Rotolo - Award for
Abo Saddam (Egypt)
Mohamed Mamdouh - Naguib Mahfouz Award for
107 Mothers (Slovakia)
Ivan Ostrochovsky & Peter Kerekes - Award for
They Carry Death (Spain, Colombia)
José Alayon - Horizons of Arab Cinema Award for
Memory Box (Lebanon, France, Canada, Qatar)
Joana Hadjithomas & Khalil Joreige - Critics Week Award for
The Stranger (Palestine)
Director: Ameer Fakher Eldin