Directing
Asma El Bakri's first film, A Drop of Water is a short observational-ethnographic documentary following life—sunrise to sunset—in a Western desert village. The film shows various practices of an endangered way of traditional life: farming, weaving, pottery, dancing, etc.
Set in the summer of 1961 during President Nasser's land reforms, this is a story of the childhood friendship between Yasser, the son of a bourgeois landowner, and Leil, the son of an Egyptian peasant. When turbulent times tear Yasser's family apart, the boys team up for a money-making scheme that results in misadventures.
Freed after spending years in prison, an activist's homecoming turns into a dark affair as his disillusion clashes with his family's expectations. Demonstrating Chahine’s eclecticism, this is an elegant melodrama, exuberant musical, layered allegory, and profound portrait of personal and political disillusionment.
As Major General Helmy and his son Sa'ad take part in the first Palestine War, his wife Horeya cheats on him with Kamal. When Helmy returns and finds out, he dies from the shock and his daughter Alia vows revenge on her mother.
Azoz, an employee at the Opera House accompanies a violinist who has just arrived from tours abroad in her errands in the city. He eventually gets influenced by her and starts listening to classical music, and simultaneously gets bored with his life and wife.
A group of young people residing in Alexandria suffers from the governor’s tyranny. As they try to get rid of him, they launch a campaign to ridicule him by drawing caricatures and distributing them everywhere, until someone proposes an idea that changes the course of events.
In June 1945, during the final days of WWII, former university professor Gohar meets a young prostitute in a brothel and kills her in a moment of frenzy. Police Detective Noureddine takes on the murder case and tracks down Gohar, hoping to confront him and get a confession to the murder from him. However, both the detective and the killer face startling facts that change the way they think.
A mixed cast of Egyptians, Libyans and Moroccans address the issue of corruption among young people, many of whom seem to be suffering greatly from the lingering effects of war.
