43rd Cairo International Film Festival

12/01/2021

Festival Reviews

Becoming

by Jay Weissberg | Dec 15, 2021 | Cairo, Festivals

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.

Death of a Virgin and the Sin of Not Living

by Deborah Young | Dec 9, 2021 | Cairo, Festivals

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

by Jay Weissberg | Dec 8, 2021 | Cairo, Featured, Festivals

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

by Deborah Young | Dec 5, 2021 | Cairo, Festivals

Rashid Masharawi’s upbeat lockdown documentary set in Montmartre is a one man show full of charm and humanity.

A Second Life

by Jay Weissberg | Dec 4, 2021 | Cairo, Featured, Festivals

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

by Deborah Young | Dec 4, 2021 | Cairo, Festivals

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

by Jay Weissberg | Nov 29, 2021 | Cairo, Festivals, Red Sea

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

for
The Hole in the Fence (Mexico, Poland)
Director: Joaquin del Paso
for
Tomorrow (Tunisia)
Director: Dhafer L’Abidine
for
Small Body (Italy, France, Slovenia)
Director: Laura Samani
for
Aloners (South Korea)
Director: Hong Seong-eun
Award for
A Chiara (Italy, France)
Swamy Rotolo
Award for
Abo Saddam (Egypt)
Mohamed Mamdouh
for
107 Mothers (Slovakia)
Ivan Ostrochovsky & Peter Kerekes
Award for
They Carry Death (Spain, Colombia)
José Alayon
for
Memory Box (Lebanon, France, Canada, Qatar)
Joana Hadjithomas & Khalil Joreige
for
The Stranger (Palestine)
Director: Ameer Fakher Eldin