Hala Elkoussy

In a hot and politically challenged Cairo actress Aida and her neighbor, the aging diva Samiha, are thrown out on the streets. Together with the street smart Yassin, they try to find a place to live, forcing them to confront with their past.

Set in a confined world outside time, East of Noon is the fable of prodigy Abdo (19) who uses music to rebel against his elders: showman Shawky (70), an eccentric showman who rules with a mix of performance and fear, and storyteller Jalala (75), who provides relief with stories of the Sea, which no one else has seen. East of Noon is a satire on the inner workings of an ailing autocracy and its inherent vulnerability to youth’s unchained vision of a better world.

Both Mahmoud and Zeinab join hands to search for the original version of the first Egyptian independent film that was made back in the 1980s, all copies of which were either destroyed or confiscated for unknown reasons by the government film agency, an entity that governed film production and distribution at the time.

A young man happens upon a matriarch in an abandoned building. She recites poems of a sea unknown. The matriarch teaches the young man her stories, igniting his imagination.. According to her, only stories can overcome oblivion. Together, they dream of a sea in a realm beyond material obstacles. This stream of thoughts uplifts them both as they embark into their now shared image of the blue sea, in contrast to their monotonous reality.