More About Film
In this film, Yomna Khattab restores visibility to a group often overlooked in Arab cinema: the elderly. In a society that rarely gives them space on screen, she places her father and men of his generation at the heart of her cinematic project, using them as a gateway to explore selfhood and complex emotions through personal reflection. From the very beginning, with old home footage shot by Yamina—evoking a time when everything still seemed possible for the child she once was—it becomes clear that the film is about more than just the father-daughter relationship. It is also a meditation on the act of filming itself, a mise en abyme, a work reflecting upon itself from within.The director turns the camera on her father, who once filmed her, revisiting the past while trying to understand the present through the prism of the future and its uncertainties. The film unfolds as a continuous “work in progress,” reflecting on life, time, and the mysteries inherent in human relationships. Much of it takes place around a swimming pool, where the elderly carry out their aerobic exercises. The director navigates between her artistic and existential questions: Why does she film? Is it because she loves the exercise, or to spend more time with her father under the pretext of filming, or as a tribute to an often-overlooked age group? Perhaps it is a bit of all three, as her father suggests. She is also concerned with capturing his image while surpassing it, wary of becoming merely a reflection of him. Yet she strives to preserve the family legacy through procreation, as if seeking to balance escaping his shadow with remaining rooted in his lineage.Her greatest challenge, however, remains penetrating the structure of his thoughts and capturing his attention. This absent-minded father, in a poignant moment, confesses that he wished he had never become a parent. Khattab uses the tools of cinema to bridge the distance between them, bringing her personal questions into the open. Over time, as her own vulnerabilities are revealed to the camera, reconciliation with both her father and herself becomes essential for moving forward.Hauvick Habéchian