Cairo Cinema Days
Cairo Cinema Days (Ayam Al Qahera Al Cinema’ya) is a showcase of Arab cinema programmed by Zawya. The event, which is set to take place between May 9-16, features a selection of around 40 short, feature and documentary films that have come out of the Arab world over the past two years.
Ayam El Qahera El Cinema'eya is an opportunity for audiences in Egypt to engage with the contemporary cinematic worlds of Lebanon, Syria, Palestine Tunisia, Morocco, Algeria, Jordan and Egypt through a presentation of an eclectic selection of films whose distribution and exhibition remains quite limited, both regionally and internationally, compared to their mainstream counterparts.
In addition to featuring a wide array of recent productions, the festival also includes screenings of some of Arab cinema’s historical landmarks as well as panels, workshops and Q&A sessions with filmmakers in attendance
- Event Films -
Documentary | France, Qatar, PalestineLebanon | 2016 | Arabic, English, French | English subtitles | 62 min
Off Frame AKA Revolution Until Victory is a meditation on the Palestinian struggle for production and self-representation on their own terms in the 1960s and 1970s with the establishment of the Palest...
Fiction, Drama | Morocco, Qatar, Spain, France | 2016 | Arabic | French SUBTITLES | 93 MINS
An elderly sheikh, nearing death, seeks to travel to his birthplace in the Atlas Mountains so he may find final rest among his family and loved ones, but the road is treacherous and more than the cara...
Short Films | Syria, Lebanon | 2016 | No Dialogue | 6 MINS
Once there was a boy who loved drawing the sea. One day, he dove into the sea, hoping to escape war. However, he was trapped between screens that had appropriated his story. The international media ca...
Short Film | Sudan | 2016 | Arabic | English Subtitles | 19 MINS
After having lost his father in an air raid Adam, a ten-year-old boy, is forced to flee to the city, to survive, he becomes a skilful burglar, the best and he most envied. Things become complicated wh...
Fiction, Drama | Lebanon, France, Qatar, U.A.E | 2016 | Arabic | English, FRENCH SUBTITLES | 105 MINS
Rabih, a young blind man, lives in a small village in Lebanon. His life unravels when he applies for a passport and discovers that his identification card is a forgery. Traveling across rural Lebanon ...
Short Films | Egypt, Lebanon | 2017 | Arabic, French | English SUBTITLES | 20 MINS
We’re covered with impermeable skin and our eyes are turned outwards. How easy it is to forget what we’re made of. Events of loss remind us that we are our body while our body isn’t only our own...
Fiction, Drama | Tunisia | 2016 | Arabic | Englsih SUBTITLES | 95 MINS
N is a young sub-Saharan man who crosses the desert in order to reach North Africa and be smuggled into Europe. After being a victim to a hold-up, he finds himself alone in Tunisia. He therefore de...
Short Films | Palestine, UK, Denmark, Qatar | 2015 | Arabic | English SUBTITLES | 29 MINS
In the Future They Ate from the Finest Porcelain resides in the cross-section between sci-fi, archaeology and politics. Combining live motion and CGI, the film explores the role of myth for history, f...
Documentary | Tunisia, France, Qatar, Ukraine | 2016 | Arabic | English subtitles | 94 min
2009. Zaineb is nine years old and has lived with her mother and younger brother in Tunis since her father died in a car accident. But when her mother expresses the desire to rebuild her life with a m...
Short Films | Tunisia, France | 2016 | Arabic | English, French SUBTITLES | 31 MINS
A piece of blank white paper placed and pulsating before a camera’s lens attracts a crowd of passers-by in Tunis, the simplicity of the conceit slowly opening up to a profound reflection on the nature...
Short Films | Lebanon, Syria | 2015 | Arabic | English SUBTITLES | 20 MINS
Garage Izmir is in the mthousands iddle of the long migratory journey that of Syrian refugees pass through daily to take the sea route to Europe, after a long wait in Turkey. Will this journey be dela...
Documentary | Netherlands, Tunisia | 2016 | Dutch, English, Arabic | English subtitles | 93 min
The Dutch filmmaker Alex Pitstra, born Karim Alexander Ben Hassen, is 25 when he receives a letter from his Tunisian father, whom he hasn’t seen since his early childhood. His father tells him that he...
Fiction | Lebanon | 1991 | Arabic, French | English, French
Out of Life tells the gripping story of a French journalist taken hostage in war torn Beirut. As the man’s captivity period stretches, his dignity and moral fiber erode slowly but surely. The film is ...
Short Films | Egypt | 2016 | Arabic | English SUBTITLES | 24 MINS
Shot between Cairo and different locations in India, the film Dear Animal weaves together a short story by writer Haytham El-Wardany – titled “Lord of the Order of Existence” – about a drug dealer who...
Documentary | Lebanon | 1978 | Arabic | English SUBTITLES | 29 MINS
This film is inspired by a song by Marcel Khalifeh based on a poem by Hassan Al Abdallah. Its starting point is a martyr of the Communist Action Organization (part of Lebanon’s National Front) and his...
Fiction, Drama | Lebanon | 2016 | Arabic | English SUBTITLES | 75 MINS
The Beach House is a film about four people from an Arab generation roaming over the ruins of ideologies, causes and values of their predecessors. It portrays their intellectual and emotional nonchala...
Short Film | Jordan, Germany | 2016 | Arabic. Hebrew, Yiddish | English Subtiles | 18 MINS
A Mizrahi Jewish family from Tunisia, who tries to settle into their new life in 1948 Haifa, Palestine is haunted by a disturbing house guest, a left behind big blue parrot from the former Arab reside...
Short Film | Tunisia | 2016 | Arabic | English, French SUBTITLES | 19 MINS
Baba Azizi is an old man that was not spared by illness. Passed around from house to house of his different children, he finds himself at his daughter’s for a couple of days. An umpteenth ordeal in pe...
Short Film | Egypt, Sudan | 2016 | Arabic | English SUBTITLES | 20 MINS
A delicate exploration of the highs and lows of intimacy between Leila and Ibrahim, a loving couple, as they deliberate the difficult decisions surrounding conception and parenthood...
Fiction | Lebanon | 1975 | Arabic | English SUBTITLES | 110 MINS
Beirut Oh Beirut has been done as a graduation film; it’s Maroun Bagdadi's first feature, set against the backdrop of events between the first Israeli raid on Lebanese territories in 1968, and the dea...
Documentary | Egypt, Switzerland | 2016 | Arabic, English | English SUBTITLES | 37 MINS
One Plus One Makes a Pharaoh’s Chocolate Cake documents the process of a week of meetings in Cairo between musicians Aïsha Devi from Switzerland and Islam Chipsy as they were asked to produce a collab...
Short Film | Syria, France | 2016 | English | 13 MINS
On a Mediterranean shore, a Syrian Father makes a decision that puts his daughter’s life at ris...
Short Film | Lebanon | 2016 | Arabic | English Subtiles | 21 MINS
Under the imminent threat of Lebanon’s garbage crisis, Hala, a wild child inside of a woman, is the only one to refuse evacuation, clinging to whatever remains of hom...
Documentary | Lebanon, U.A.E | 2016 | Arabic | English subtitles | 95 min
Al Shambouk is one of the highest mountainous areas in Lebanon. It is located in the Akkar heights, and is only a few kilometers away from Syria. It is the homeland of Haykal, a 60-some...
Documentary | Palestine, Germany, UK | 2016 | Arabic, English | English subtitles | 68 min
A portrait of Palestinian and Mizrahi (Eastern Jewish) musics in Palestine/Israel today, in dialogue with the 1936-7 Oriental Music Broadcasts, made by ethnomusicologist Robert Lachmann. 80 years late...
Documentary | Lebanon | 2016 | Arabic | English, French subtitles | 83 min
Hady follows his grandmother Henriette as she ages and crosses the centenarian milestone to reach 104 years. He witnesses the transformation of her memory, her emigration from Lebanon to Brazil and th...
Fiction, Drama | Egypt | 2016 | Arabic | English SUBTITLES | 90 MINS
A woman’s sudden death and a discovered family secret disrupt everyone’s lives. After Marwa buries her mother, she discovers her mother’s wish to be buried elsewhere. Only hours before she is to leave...
Documentary | Lebanon | 1979 | Arabic | English SUBTITLES | 74 MINS
This film gives an account of the Israeli invasion of Lebanon through meetings and interviews with common people and leading personalities from the south of the country. In a satirical twist, We Are A...
Fiction | Lebanon | 1975 | Arabic | English SUBTITLES | 110 MINS
Beirut Oh Beirut has been done as a graduation film; it’s Maroun Bagdadi's first feature, set against the backdrop of events between the first Israeli raid on Lebanese territories in 1968, and the dea...
Documentary | Lebanon, France, Norway, U.A.E | 2016 | Arabic | English subtitles | 67 min
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We're all familiar with the existence of maids in our daily lives as we're accustomed to the influence of their presence in our way of living. Zein is the owner of one of the many domestic workers’...
Documentary | Syria, Lebanon | 2016 | Arabic, Armenian, French | English subtitles | 90 min
The film portrays the changes in the life of an Armenian family on Aleppo’s frontline in Al Midan, an area that brought shelter to the persecuted Armenians 100 years ago and today to many displaced Sy...
Documentary | Algeria, France | 2017 | Arabic | English subtitles | 135 min
Nedjma, a young investigative journalist at a daily newspaper, is seeking paradise—but not just any kingdom of heaven. Her research examines the depictions of paradise by Salafist preachers in the Mag...
Documentary | Germany | 2016 | Arabic, English | English subtitles | 87 min
Gaza – a strip of land with 1.7 million citizens – has 26 miles of coastline, with a harbour that no longer services ships. Wedged between Israel and Egypt and isolated from the rest of the world, ver...
Fiction, Drama | Iraq, Germany, Qatar | 2016 | Kurdish | English SUBTITLES | 98 MINS
Reko (33) and Pero (23) are a Yazidi couple preparing for their wedding, when ISIS fighters attack their village. Young Yazidi girls, including Pero, are sold as slaves and are tortured and raped. Rek...
Documentary | Egypt | 2015 | Arabic | English SUBTITLES | 43 MINS
A World Bank inspection team arrives at an Egyptian village to assess its transformation of agricultural management. A TV presenter is making a series about women living in the countryside. A group of...