El Ott

+Paired with Shorts
+Adult Content
+Egypt

Friday, 11/6 at St. Anthony Main
9:30 p.m.

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Director: Ibrahim El-Batout

Narrative feature, crime/thriller/action, 92 mins, 2014
Country: Egypt, UAE, France
Language: Arabic
Minnesota premiere

Principal Cast: Amr Waked, Farouk Al Fishawy, Salah Al-Hanafy, Amr Farouk, Sarah Shaheen, Salma Yacout

Synopsis: Told from the perspective of reformed gang leader, the eponymous El Ott (Waked),  who turns against ruthless gangster, Fathi (Al-Hanafy), El Ott (The Cat) takes viewers from Egypt’s deepest south to its northern capital, Cairo. But when a mysterious character (El-Fishawy) plays both men like pawns in a chess game, their notions of justice, choice and freedom come into question. Examining the seedy and violent underworld of human and organ trade, El Ott’s characters struggle to stake their claims and mark their turfs in world tainted by greed, corruption and the exploitation of innocence. El Ott is a multi-layered story that unfolds much like a mystery, revealing its tangled narrative and cinematic technique as it goes.

Ibrahim El-Batout was born in Port-Said in 1963. From 1987 to 2004, he worked as a documentary director, producer, editor, and cameraman in war zones and made over 29 documentaries for which he won many international awards. After being shot twice, El-Batout decided to leave the trauma of wars behind and returned to Egypt to make independent feature films. He took the Egyptian film industry by storm and challenged censorship by sidestepping the long bureaucratic process for shooting permissions for his first feature, Ithaki (2005). His feature film ‘Ein Shams’ (Eye of the Sun) screening in the 6th TCAFF in 2008 and Winter of Discontent closed Mizna’s 8th festival in 2013.  

Festivals:
Abu Dhabi International Film Festival, UAE, 2014
Venice Film Festival, Italy, 2014

Awards:
Final Cut Post-Production Award, Venice Film Festival, 2014
SANAD Post-Production Award, Abu Dhabi Film Festival, 2014

Screening with “Rate Me“