Dreamaway + Manivelle: The Last Days of the Man of Tomorrow
+Juror’s Selection: Best Short Film
+Egypt in Focus
Friday, 9/27
9:15 p.m.
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Dreamaway
Marouan Omara and Johanna Domke
Documentary feature
85 mins | 2018
Germany, Egypt
Arabic with English subtitles
Minnesota premiere
Dreamaway follows a group of young workers in a luxury hotel compound, holding onto the town despite the lack of tourists. Returning home is not an option, as they have absorbed the liberal lifestyle and experienced the difficulty of fitting back into their own culture. Sharm El-Sheikh has long been a dream destination for young Egyptians, a place of freedom and easy money. They lead a double life in the shadow of the shimmering hotel facades, as their families are unaware of the temptations in town. With no tourists, they are left in a vacuum, lacking opportunities and leading them to an existential quest for their identity.
Festivals and Awards:
Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, Czech Republic, 2018
Critics’ Choice Award, Fribourg International Film Festival, Switzerland, 2019
BFI London Film Festival, UK, 2018
Chicago International Film Festival, US, 2018
Marouan Omara is a filmmaker born in 1987 in Cairo, Egypt. He studied film-making at the Art and Technology of Cinema Academy and his BA in applied arts from Helwan University. His works have a dreamlike quality, overlapping fiction and reality. He is currently an adjunct professor of film production at the American University in Cairo.
Johanna Domke studied fine arts at the Royal Danish Art Academy in Copenhagen and Malmö Art Academy in Sweden. She has received attention for her video work in art institutions around the world. Her fascination with film lead her to a post-graduate study in screenwriting and directing at the Academy of Media Arts Cologne, Germany. She is currently producing work in Berlin through a crossover between art and cinema with structural and socio-political approaches.
*****
Manivelle: Last Days of the Man of Tomorrow
مانيفيل: آخر أيام رجل الغد
Fadi (the fdz) Baki
Short mockumentary
29 mins | 2017
Lebanon
Arabic with English subtitles
Minnesota premiere
A young filmmaker investigates the legend of Manivelle, an automaton gifted to Lebanon in 1945 that still haunts an abandoned mansion in Beirut. After being coaxed back out into the limelight, the people who knew him come forward to speak their mind, and the myth that Manivelle has constructed around himself starts to unravel.
Festivals and Awards:
Bacchus Best Short Award, Boston Underground Film Festival, US, 2019
Best Short Film Award, BBC Arabic Film Festival, UK, 2019
Best Independent Short, The Lebanese Movie Awards, 2019, Lebanon
Jury Prize for Best Short, On Vous Ment Mockumentary Film Festival, 2019, France
Fadi Baki (The fdz) is a writer and director born in Beirut, 1977. A co-founder and co-editor of Samandal, one of the Middle East’s premiere comics magazines, and Beirut Animated, the Lebanese animation film festival, Fadi currently divides his time between teaching, motion graphics, comics and filmmaking.
