‘AMAL - Mohamed Siam’

In the presence of the director.

Amal is 14 years old when she ends up on Tahrir Square during the Egyptian revolution, after the death of her boyfriend in the Port Said Stadium riot. During the protests, she is beaten by police and dragged across the square by her hair. This coming-of-age film follows her over the years after the revolution. As the film cuts between the unfolding current events and Amal’s rapidly changing life and appearance, we see her searching for her own identity in a country in transition.

Mohamed Siam is a fiction and documentary filmmaker. In addition to member of the Academy — the Oscars, he is a Sundance, IDFA and Fabrique des Cinémas du Monde Fellow. His films have been screened in NYFF, Karlovy Vary and Carthage, where he won The Golden Tanit in 2018 and Best Cinematography in 2017. His recent film Amal was the 2017 IDFA Opening Film. It won the Sheffield Jury Prize and the FidaDoc Award, the Robert Bosch Film Prize and the Thessaloniki award. Siam is a fellow scholar and filmmaker resident in the American University in Paris.

The screening is immediately followed by a conversation with Mohamed Siam and Ruth Vandewalle, moderated by Brigitte Herremans: What's left of the Egyptian revolution?