Before the Summer Crowds
+ DRY HOT SUMMERS + TCAFF 2016 Awards
+US Premiere
+Panel Discussion
+Egypt
Sunday, 10/2 at St. Anthony Main Theatre
5:30 p.m.
Buy tickets >>>
Before the Summer Crowds / قبل زمحة الصيف
This past July, Egypt lost one of it’s most prolific contemporary filmmakers, Mohamed Khan. Join us in honoring his memory with his final feature-length film, a charming comedy that offers a closer look at the politics of class and gender in a sliver of Egyptian society.
Mohamed Khan
narrative feature / drama / comedy
89 mins / 2015
Egypt / UAE
Arabic with English subtitles
U.S. premiere
DCP
Before the summer officially begins, before the waves of tourist flock to a seaside town near Alexandria, Hala (Hana Shiha) travels to a resort to meet a lover Hesham (Hany El Metennawy). His visit is short, but Hala stays to enjoy the beach and unwittingly becomes the focus of the other three inhabitants’ attention–Yehia (Maged El Kedwany), his wife Magda (Lana Mushtaq), and Gomaa (Ahmed Dawood). Khan’s film presents a unique look at the disparity between rich and poor in Egypt through comedy and expert performances.
“It all began in a simple way.” –Mohamed Khan
Reviews
Variety: Mohamed Khan’s “Before the Summer Crowds” to World Premiere at DIFF
Screen Daily: “Before the Summer Crowds” Review
Facebook
facebook.com/Before.the.summer.crowds.Movie
Mohamed Khan has cemented his role as an distinctive director in the Egyptian and Arab filmmaking scene. With a rich repertoire of more than 25 films, his works have received over 30 international awards and recognitions. Khan studied filmmaking in London and joined the Script Department at the General Egyptian Company in 1963. He has worked as a director and assistant director on numerous projects, and he is the author of two books on cinema.
Festivals and Awards
*World Premiere at Dubai International Film Festival, UAE, 2015
*Luxor African Film Festival, Egypt, 2015
Dry Hot Summers
Shawky (Mohamed Farid), a man suffering from old age, and Doaa (Nahed El Sabai), a woman preparing for marriage, meet in a taxi and become forever linked in this touching story about the kindness of strangers.
Sherif Elbendary
narrative short / drama / comedy
30 mins / 2015
Egypt / Germany
Arabic with English subtitles
Minnesota premiere
DCP
Facebook
facebook.com/Dry-Hot-Summers-1516207235280648
Awards and Festivals
*Best Short Film, Oran International Film Festival, Algeria, 2015
*Best Director, Bangalore International Film Festival, India, 2015
Sherif Elbendary lives and works in Cairo. His first short film Rise and Shine was selected for more than 75 festivals and won 33 awards. He is currently working on his first feature film, Ali, the Goat, and Ibrahim, and continues to make short films.
Post screening dicussion with:
Mohannad Ghawanmeh has produced, acted in, curated, written about, and lectured on film. He has curated/directed Mizna’s Twin Cities Arab Film Fetival, the Twin Cities Italian Film Festival, the Arab American National Museum’s Film Festival, and UCLA’s Melnitz Movies. Ghawanmeh is currently a PhD student in Cinema and Media Studies at UCLA and is working on a dissertation that investigates the political economy of Egyptian silent cinema. His scholarship also encompasses Arab cinema, early/silent cinema, nationalism/transnationalism, film financing, censure/censorship, digital humanities, and more.
Sonali Pahwa is Assistant Professor of Theatre Arts & Dance at the University of Minnesota. An anthropologist of performance in the Arab world, she is completing a book on Egyptian youth theatre, protest, and street performance in the late Mubarak era. Her newer research on women’s digital lives in Egypt and Saudi Arabia investigates blogs, vlogs, and video games as performance genres. She worked as a culture journalist for Al-Ahram Weekly in Cairo.
