Feature Narrative
TOTAL BUDGET
€274,085
CONFIRMED FINANCING
US $20,000
CONTACT
ahmedsol@me.com
+16464726336
Eighteen-year-old Ahmed (based on Shakespeare’s Hamlet) has to carve a place for himself within a patriarchal world. After the ghost of his late father demands revenge for his alleged assassination, Ahmed struggles as it goes against his peaceful Sufi beliefs.
Eighteen-year-old Ahmed lives in a Cairo slum under the threat of brutal urban renewal. His family and community see him as an eccentric. His father, who died recently, used to own an ‘empire’ of donkey-driven carriages that roam around the decaying city, collecting junk to be sold for profit. After the father’s mysterious death, Ahmed has to quickly ‘become a man’ to replace his father, conforming to his community’s power structure.
Ahmed sees an apparition of his late father while performing transcendent Sufi rituals in the local ‘moulid’ (religious festival). Through that spiritual experience, he is able to connect with his father and find out that his uncle and his own mother might be the reason behind his death. Ahmed is now expected to avenge his father, with whom he already had a complicated relationship. He now faces a living patriarch to avenge a dead one. He is increasingly lost, since his own Sufi beliefs prevent him from being part of a violent revenge scheme. His doubts about his uncle, who recently married his mother, are tearing him apart.
Ahmed embarks on a journey to avenge his father, deal with his uncle and mother, and discover who he wants to become. Will Ahmed end up like the men in his family, or will he seek his own truth about the world?
The location of the film is where I used to live. The people from this neighborhood are regular people; they are heroes, but not in the conventional sense, simply because surviving their daily lives is considered a heroic feat. I lived in that neighborhood for almost 10 years, which allowed me to explore the world of its inhabitants.
I gained people’s trust and confidence, and I want to exalt their lives and their existence— they are people with neither hope nor despair. My first narrative feature, Poisonous Roses (2018), was also a telling story of the people from the same Cairo slum.
As I write this, I witness how the place is changing; being destroyed by the gentrification in an aggressive way. The lives of the residents, who depended on this slum for their livelihood, are now turned upside down without clear alternatives.
Hamlet represents a new generation in Egypt; a youth that is trying to break away from the chains of tradition and old ways. That is why everyone sees Hamlet as a madman.
For me, however, he is a young man who believes in humanity and its endless abilities. He finds himself facing a painful reality where murderers like his uncle control people’s lives, and wives forget husbands as soon as they are buried. It is a world where you can only reach your goals through violence. Hamlet goes on an existential quest to discover himself and his beliefs which, eventually, he cannot apply in his own life. Herein lies his tragedy.
In addition to co-writing Hamlet from the Slums, I am also producing the film. Since I started working in the film industry, I was involved in a few projects as a writer whose works were successfully financed, such as Ali, the Goat and Ibrahim and Feathers of a Father.
I have also acquired a great deal of experience writing, directing, and co-producing my first feature, Kiss Me Not, which makes me ready to produce this project and help get it made. Co-producing my own film helped me gain knowledge about how to shoot a film in Egypt with all the obstacles of a low-budget production.
I sincerely believe that this film is unlike any other emerging from our region. Ahmed Fawzi-Saleh’s special world and Sufi cinematic language make me eager to make this project happen. I choose to work on a film that is so far from what is expected and produced in our conventional film industry. It is also a pleasure to write and develop.
2018: Kiss Me Not
2018: Looking for Oum Kalthoum