Omar Zohairy
Directing
Biography
Omar El Zohairy studied film directing at the High Institute of Cinema in Cairo and worked as an assistant director on feature films of Egypt’s most prominent filmmakers, including Yousri Nasrallah. His short film, The Aftermath of the Inauguration of the Public Toilet at Kilometre 375, was the first Egyptian film to be selected for the Cinéfondation competition at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival, the film went on to win several awards around the world.
Known For
Heba is a TV presenter interested in broadcasting stories that touch on the everyday secret lives of women and the social injustices they face. Her frank style in broadcasting puts her husband's job and consequently her marriage in jeopardy.
Scheherazade, Tell Me a Story
10 filmmakers provide 10 separate stories focusing on the 18 days of the 2011 Egyptian revolution. Ten stories they have experienced, heard, or imagined.
18 Days
A passive mother who dedicates her life to her husband and children. Stuck in daily, repetitive, mundane chores, she has made herself as little as she possibly could. When a magic trick goes wrong at her 4-year-old son's birthday party, an avalanche of coincidental absurdities befalls the family. The magician turns her husband, the authoritarian father, into a chicken. The mother is now forced to come to the fore and take care of the family while moving heaven and earth to bring her husband back. As she tries to survive, she goes through a rough and absurd transformation.
Feathers
Reem is a young political activist who works for an advertisement company. As she tries to uncover the truth behind the incide of the Battle of the Camel, she accompanies her friend Farah to Nazlet Al Seman where she meets and falls for Mahmoud, one of the people involved in the incident.
After the Battle
In one of the most extraordinary nights in the history of Egypt, the prisons were suddenly opened, leaving thousands of prisoners wandering the desert. Among them was one man trying to find his way in a city that is rapidly changing for good.
Rags & Tatters
The film follows the aftermath of an unfortunate incident at the inauguration of a public toilet located in the middle of the Egyptian desert. Inspired by Anton Chekhov's short story "The Death Of A Government Clerk," director El Zohairy offers us a story about fear in a milieu where uniformity and hierarchy reigns, in which the poses and gestures of the actors express a lot more than their words.
The Aftermath of the Inauguration of the Public Toilet at Kilometer 375
Between exhale and inhale, the events of the film revolve around a couple over the age of seventy, whose life is silent, surrounded by boring, repetitive daily details.
Breath out
The windows are closed. Everything the old man can hear is the heavy breath of his wife. The slow routines of ageing and the decay of the body are closely examined in beautiful intensity.