When I started as a FIPRESCI jury member at the 8th El Gouna Film Festival, I noticed the large number of films by new female directors. Four out of seven films were directed by women. We also saw three other strong films, including Always, which won the FIPRESCI Award for its artistic quality. The majority of films we judged came from Arab women directors: Happy Birthday by Egyptian director Sarah Goher; the documentary 50 Meters, the first film by Egyptian director Youmna Khattab; the feature film Love Imagined by Egyptian director Sarah Rozik; and the Tunisian film Where the Wind Comes From by Amel Gellaty.
Each film shows a special view of women’s thoughts and energy on Arab screens. This helps us understand many cinematic ideas in the Arab world, especially in societies that are changing quickly. Even though these films are different in genre, themes, and story styles, they all show a clear female influence in the filmmaking, like the subjects they choose and the kinds of characters they create.
50 Meters, the only documentary among the four, is a personal story by Youmna Khattab. She explores her father’s male world, focusing on his swimming exercise with his friends at the club. Yumna also shows her struggles and worries about her future, which might be linked to past expectations, especially from her father, who is her role model.
Yumna talks about her worries carefully, especially around her father, to avoid getting direct advice. She looks for close moments with him in his private space to feel safe. Interestingly, her father has modern ideas; he rejects words like “panic” and says motherhood is a choice, not a social obligation. He even admitted he wished he hadn’t been a father. This honesty makes us think deeply about the future and living in the moment, instead of worrying about tomorrow.
Visually, the film moves from the father’s world to Yumna’s through archival footage he filmed of her. This shows the difference between the “Father’s Yumna” in old pictures and the current “Own Yumna,” who wants to be open and real, not just perform well, unlike in her childhood videos. A common point in 50 Meters and the other films is the presence of an “External Other.” Here, the men’s authority (the father and his friends) is clear in their comments. Yumna wanted to film her father as she saw him, taking the camera to present her ideas.
In Happy Birthday, Sarah Goher focuses on social differences in Egyptian society through Touha, a small girl who learns about the adult world by wishing on a birthday candle to join a new family.
The film struggles to give a clear and believable reason for how the eight-year-old girl ended up working as a maid for the wealthy family. Touha cares about the candle, not the cake’s taste, because she believes it will make her wish come true, based on what the rich daughter told her.
The film’s dramatic structure is weak because of too many coincidences used to get the girl to the “Birthday Fortress”. A bigger issue is that the script seems to use the events to push the director’s idea, forgetting Touha’s innocent, childlike view. In one scene, Touha does things that seem too grown-up for a child who has been rejected, just to create a sad, dramatic ending. The director’s perspective, living in the US, might have made her view of the poor’s reality feel distant, though the acting by Hanan Motawie and the child Dhuha was strong.
However, the director’s best skill, especially in her first film, is her ability to control the film’s pace from start to finish. Happy Birthday showed this clearly; despite the script issues, the director successfully kept the viewer interested and maintained the story’s flow.
Love Imagined shares the lively feeling and energy of the other films. The physical movement is clear in a film that brings back the Musical genre, which has been rare in Egyptian cinema. It is influenced by films like La La Land, whose poster is in the hero Nouh’s room. The story is about three characters looking for comfort: Nouh, the dreamer, who starts a fantasy love story after his girlfriend Warda rejects him to focus on her career; and Dr. Youssef, who returns from Germany and lives with a statue of his dead wife.
Although the film is a bit commercial, it still offers a fresh voice and a different vision in a joyful way. In the end, the characters find comfort in love, realizing their relationships were a way to heal and understand what they needed.
Away from the three Egyptian films, the Tunisian director Amel Gellaty, in Where the Wind Comes From, shows a heroine who faces the “Other” which, in this case, is Fate itself. Gellaty presents Alissa, nineteen, who lives her life by rebelling against rules, treating her destiny as an enemy. Her fierce spirit is clear in the film’s quick pace. Alissa is arguably the most consistent character among the four, with her actions always matching her inner feelings.
But the key point is that the heroine finds peace not through total rebellion, but through love and returning to her roots. She ends her journey by accepting her past and current life. This is a new way to grow up, where accepting reality becomes necessary instead of reckless revolt.
The visible presence of women directors in the FIPRESCI race is just a small part of a larger cinematic movement Egypt saw in 2024. It was clearly “The Year of the Women Directors”. In 2023, there was a production boom (42 films) but only one directed by a woman. However, 2024 saw 12 films—fiction and documentary—out of 43 total releases, plus many short films, directed by women.
The rise of Arab women directors offers close and honest views on power dynamics and female roles. Looking at the four films, we see a gradual progression in understanding women’s spaces. It starts with deep intimacy in 50 Meters, moves to social reality in Happy Birthday (class differences), and then expands to youth searching for identity and freedom in Love Imagined and Where the Wind Comes From.
The different types of female characters (mature thought in 50 Meters, innocent childhood in Happy Birthday, and young desire for freedom in the other two) proves that the rhythm of this generation’s debut work is not just technical skill. It is the ability to show the complex and varied female experience in Arab cinema.
Omnia Adel
©FIPRESCI 2025