ALEXANDRIA, WHY? The Wave of Independent Cinema from Egypt’s Mediterranean Capital
program description
Alexandria needs no introduction. Egypt’s second largest city, an ancient Mediterranean metropolis, and an age-old source of inspiration for philosophers, painters, writers, poets – and filmmakers, most famously, the towering figures of Youssef Chahine (The Alexandria Trilogy, Cairo Station) and Shady Abdelsalam (The Night of Counting the Years).
More recently, since the shift to digital in the mid-2000s, and beginning of the hyper-commercialization of Egyptian cinema, a new creative energy has sprouted in Alexandria, taking form in a scattered but interlinked group of individuals producing films with limited, independent means. Far from Cairo’s grinding production machine, and with no state film school imposing its tyrannical system, Alexandria is a natural breeding ground for a New Wave. Those who remain resist the mass exodus to the capital; here, resourcefulness and resilience are a necessity.
These filmmakers carry the city under their skin: its sounds and smells, its decay and destruction, its painful beauty. How can one not be romantic about Alexandria? And yet, their cinematic language is direct – cinéma vérité – and their compulsion is to document all that is vanishing before their eyes: buildings, stories, people – the absence of which haunts them like ghost limbs.
In this city by the sea, as in these films, much simmers beneath the surface. Wrestling with memories, desires, fears, and the relentless march of time, Alexandria – and the cinema it births – continues to inspire.
about the curators
KINO CAIRO is a filmmaking collective committed to watching, discussing and creating inspired cinema. Through its activities, it seeks to build a framework for an alternative filmmaking culture and nurture the emerging generation of independent Egyptian filmmakers.
Starting as a film club organizing curated screenings across Cairo, their recent production ventures include Two.Five, a Super 8 Short Film competition that culminated in a filmmaking festival and screening at Zawya Cinema in September 2024.
Egypt, 2017, 1h 10m
In Alexandria, Ossama follows stories of old buildings being demolished and historical landmarks disappearing.
Egypt, 2010, 21m
In the lively plaza before the Bibliotheca Alexandrina, Marwa and her friend meet a familiar client, Adel, and his companion.
Egypt, 2023, 1h 16m
Hend approaches the long forgotten, but much respected, novelist Mohamed Hafez Ragab in his simple apartment where he decided to seclude himself in the eighties.
Egypt / UAE, 2013, 1h 25m
Six different characters roaming in Alexandria along with their fears. Amr comes back to meet his father on his death bed, not sure how he can speak up and show his true feelings.
