Mother of the Unborn

+Paired with short
+North American Premiere
+Egypt

Saturday, 11/7 at St. Anthony Main Theatre
5:00 p.m.

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Director: Nadine Salib
Documentary feature, 84 mins, 2014
Countries: Egypt, UAE
Language: Arabic
North American premiere

Synopsis: In a forgotten corner of Upper Egypt lives a woman who is yearning for a child. Hayan, a young Egyptian woman marked by her infertility exists on the fringes of her own community. She struggles to find a place where she belongs, while watching her dream of motherhood slowly slip away. Yetd life arounds her seems to move to the rhythms of birth and death, and she wonders how to make meaning for all the time that lies between.

Nadine Salib was born in Egypt in 1984 and graduated from film school in 2006, where she studied the basics of filmmaking. She started her career as an assistant director in commercials, then headed to the independent field in 2009, where she worked as a first assistant and script supervisor in many short and feature-length films screened in national and international film festivals. In 2011 she directed her first short documentary “Fagr” (“Dawn”), which won second prize in the Arab women filmmakers competition at the Baghdad International Film Festival and the first prize at the 12th Goethe Independent Film Festival in Cairo. Um Ghayeb (Mother of the Unborn) is her first feature.

Festivals:
Abu Dhabi Film Festival, UAE, 2014
Carthage International Film Festival, 2014
Ayam Beirut Film Festival, Lebanon, 2015
Thessaloniki Documentary Film Festival, Greece, 2015
Helsinki Africa Film Festival, Finland, 2015
MOOOV Film Festival, Netherlands, 2015
Sheffield Documentary Film Festival, UK, 2015
Oslo Arab Film Festival, Norway, 2015

Awards:
IDFA, Peter Wintock Award for First Appearance, 2014
FIPRESCI, Abu Dhabi Film Festival, UAE, 2014