Director

Abu Bakr Shawky

Egypt, Austria, Usa | 2018 | 97 min | Arabic

• Producer Dina Emam , Mohamed Hefzy , Mohamed Sakr 
• Production Company Desert Highway Pictures, Film Clinic
• Screenplay A.B. Shawky
• Cinematography Federico Cesca
• Editing Erin Greenwell
• Sound Sherif Zein
• Cast Rady Gamal, Ahmed Abdelhafiz, Osama Abdallah, Sayed Batawi, Adel Bomba, Mohamed Abdelazim, Shehab Ibrahim, Yasser Ayouti, Galal El Ashry
• Contacts

  Film Clinic Indie Distribution

  www.deserthighwaypictures.com

About the Film

Rising filmmaker A.B. Shawky isn’t someone who takes the easy path: if he were, he’d hardly have chosen to make his first feature about a leper and an orphan on a road trip.

Yet the emotional power of this classically told story catapulted the unknown director into a competition slot at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, generating enormous buzz that called attention to the strong, youthful voices within independent Egyptian cinema.

Though the format of Yomeddine might be considered traditional, Shawky instills the genre with something fresh and meaningful, subtly making audiences see beyond surface values as he guides our sympathies toward a deeper humanity. The heartwarming results take the characters and the viewer on a transformative journey that proves once again why road movies can be so satisfying.

When his sick wife dies, Beshay leaves the leper colony where his parents dropped him decades ago, and heads south to find out why he was abandoned. Not far outside Cairo he realizes his young orphaned friend Obama has hitched a ride, and the two journey towards Qena, near Luxor, encountering hostility as well as unexpected kindness along the way. Though a non-professional actor, Gamal’s unaffected performance breaks down knee-jerk responses to physical deformity, resulting in a memorable portrayal of dignity unbroken by a harsh world.

Jay Weissberg