CFC Projects 42 – Cairo International Film Festival

Cairo Film Connection's Projects

Fiction in Post Production

Jordan/ Egypt/ France/ KSA Director: Bassel Ghandour Producer: Rula Nasser A story of a gossip-ridden, violent neighborhood. At its heart is a charming hustler pretending to be a white-collar career man. He is secretly involved in a relationship with an innocent and playful young lady, but their romance is caught on camera by an extortionist and the embarrassing video is sent to her mother. Hoping to avoid public embarrassment, the mother discreetly convinces a gangster to put a stop to it all… but things don’t go according to plan and all of their lives collide not just with each other, but with others in the neighbourhood.

Fiction in Development

Egypt - France Director: Mohamed Samir Producer: Marwa Abdalla / Claire Chassagne By her three sacred meals, breakfast, lunch and dinner, the mother has always captivated her 45-year-old son and had him stay home with her. Now, she realizes that she’s about to die, leaving him alone as useless as ever. She must make a decision: either she finds the perfect woman who will accept to become a younger mother for him disguised as his wife, or help him grow and mature so he can independently survive after her death.

Iraq/Lebanon Director: Ruba Atiyeh Producer: Huda Al-Kadhimi FOG tells the story of four exiled Assyrians/Syriacs in four foggy cities. They are visited by a mysterious guest after each of them has been long separated from a loved one. She works through each scenario they imagined of her to bring out secrets that she can align with voices she hears. As the visitor follows traces of their history in their homeland, she develops an intense connection with a militia member in the old homeland.

Egypt Director: Sameh Alaa Producer: Mark Lotfy Rim, a sheltered teenage girl, takes matters into her hands when faced with her father’s illness. She sneaks out and drives her father’s taxi through the night embarking on a dangerous journey in an attempt to raise enough money to get her father hospitalized. Through that journey Rim discovers a world of freedom and danger. With undaunted courage, Rim challenges social norms and faces prejudices and harassments all the while struggling against internalized misogyny that her own father helped create

Egypt Director: Yousry Nasrallah Producer: Ali el Arabi In a small town in Upper Egypt, on the Wednesday and Thursday preceding Good Friday, Zeinab, a 13 year old adolescent who strongly believes that myths and superstitions are real, with the help of Noah, her 16 year old Christian neighbor, abducts her mother’s body. Noah’s father died in a fire, and everyone in the small town believes that he died because he wanted to transform his house into a church, and that the house is cursed and haunted by a demon who burns it over and over again. During the escape journey, both Zeinab and Noah are confronted with many of the myths and fears they so strongly believed were true. They form a strong bond and Nouh discovers that the demon haunting his house is not from the Underworld.

Syria Director: Amr Ali Producer: Hatem Ali Farah tries to convince her husband to have an embryo transplant. Her husband refuses. Farah meets Amer, their relationship strengthens and leads to an illegal pregnancy, after which they decide to travel. To secure the money, Farah pressures her husband to sell the car under the pretext of performing the transplant. Amer travels alone. Farah turns to the transplant center and agrees with the doctor to claim the operation was successful in exchange for the donation of her kidney.

Jordan/ Palestine Director: Amira Diab Producer: Raya Aburub On the thousandth night, Shams, who plays her dream role as the exotic Scheherazade, is faulty pregnant. Her dream becomes a nightmare that she must wake up before it breaks her.

Egypt Director: Taghrid Abouelhassan Producer: Miral El Fakharany Iman, an Egyptian woman who hates her looks searches for love online through a Muslim dating website. She reveals everything about herself except for her dwarfism. Iman finds herself in a love triangle with Omar. a tall man she falls for online whom she waits for to fall in love with her before revealing her truth. A dwarf man, who embodies everything she hates about herself falls for Iman. Iman rejects his proposal because she would never marry a man with dwarfism. Iman fights the system to receive a loan to marry off her only sister. Omar arrives in Egypt to propose. Iman reveals her dwarfism.

Documentary in Post Production

Egypt Director: Aya Yusuf Producer: Kesmat El Sayed Aya eagerly searching for a story to follow her first director debut, Intentions were to find an inspiring story. She meets Samar and Sana, survivors of a brutal acid attack by their ex- partners. Aya starts documenting Samar’s journey in raising the necessary capital to hel Sana perform the artificial eye surgery outside Egypt hoping for a more natural-looking face to be able to get married.Will Aya’s journey with the film lead to a happy ending?

Iraq Director: Sahim Omar Producer: Ali Rahim Latif Al Ani was born in Baghdad in 1932 and is the founder of the Photography Syndicate. It witnessed three major eras in the country: the Republic of Iraq between 1958 and 1968, the era of Saddam Hussein from 1968 until the 2003 invasion, and Iraq from 2003 until today. His work, a symbolic treasure of global photography, constitutes a unique resource in the country's visual archive, his photographs represent a thriving Iraq. Lyra Scenes Beautiful scenery, sacred relics and the daily life of people in Iraq.

Palestine/ Germany Director: Alex Bakri Producers: May Odeh/ Thomas Kaske Hussein Darby stands on the ruins of the cinema in his hometown Jenin, which he used to be the projectionist of. Ten years before, a German NGO arrived and renovated it. Hussein tries everything to convince the new bosses that he is a professional projectionist. His efforts go unnoticed as the NGO grows bigger. The film questions the meaning of development aid and pays homage to a perished era of cinema culture in Palestine.

Documentaries in Development

Jordan/ USA Director: Widad Shafakoj Producers: Eric Angelson/ Widad Shafakoj Set against the backdrop of the Syrian Civil War, Europe and the United States of America today, Caesar is a feature documentary film that tells the story of a Syrian military officer who exposed 55,000 images of civilians captured and killed by the Syrian regime. Caesar, the whistleblowing officer’s nom-de- guerre, has photographed tens of thousands of bodies in regime prisons, civilians that were tortured and executed without trial.

JMorocco Director: ElMahdi Lyoubi Producer: Hicham Falah The Colokolo is an urban circus troupe founded by 7 friends from Salé, whose shows mix political theater and aerial acrobatics through a teeterboard that make them flying at 10 meters height. Unfortunately, the Colokolo are forced to come back on earth and to their daily problems which undermine their collective ideal of ``Making a Circus for the People``. Today, the future of the gang relies on the choices that its youngest and most talented member has to do.

Tunisia, France Director: Kaouther Ben Hania Producers: Habib Attia/ Nadim Chekhrouha A creative documentary, bordering on fiction, which covers - through the point of view of Hind Sabri - 10 years of the turbulent and agitated experience of Olfa: a Tunisian mother in her forties, a housekeeper from a poor background, which has seen her two teenage daughters become radicalized, run away, join Daesh (ISIS) in Libya and end up imprisoned there following an American attack. 10 years of real life (from 2010 to 2020), loaded with improbable twists, painful memories denial, guilt and fear, will be summoned and performed by an actress, with the assistance of the real protagonist.

Jordan Director: Rand Beiruty Producer: Rand Beiruty A coming-of-age story in the German province where a clique of Arab, Kurdish and Roma teenage girls navigate their way into adulthood between two cultures. Long-term observational documentary is woven with a stylized mix of genres, taking cues from the girls’ hopes and imaginary worlds.

Cairo Film Connection's Projects

Fiction in Post Production

The Alleys

Fiction in Development

Breakfast Lunch and Dinner

Fog

I Can Hear Your Voice Still

The Legend of Zeinab and Noah

Passage

Scheherazade Goes Silent

Snow white

Documentary in Post Production

Before The Final Picture

Iraq’s Invisible Beauty

The Last Projectionist

Documentaries in Development

Caesar

FLYING LIKE A BIRD

Olfa's Daughters

Tell Them About Us

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