Manassat Film Festival Returns With 10th Edition This May

At its 10th edition, Manassat Film Festival — a Cairo-based platform dedicated to the preservation and cultivation of cinematic arts — opens its most thematically layered program to date. This year, the festival introduces a new collaboration with literary platform Rowayat, threading live readings into the architecture of each screening.

Before every film program begins, a selected writer takes the stage: poets, memoirists, novelists, and essayists drawn from across generations, offering a passage between the written word and the moving image. It is a deliberate gesture, and one that sets the tone for a festival that has always positioned film as something closer to literature than spectacle.

The six competitive programs, all held at Zawya Cinema, span student and professional work in fiction and nonfiction, running across four days from May 20th to May 23rd. Two additional out-of-competition screenings — one guest-curated by film platform A Kiss in the Desert, another by programming newcomer Cineolio — round out the lineup with international short films from Chad, France, Iraq, Australia, Switzerland, the Netherlands and the United States.

Manassa No. 1 — Wednesday, May 20th

A Week in Ahmed's Life | Dir. Ehab Elgingihy

(Student Fiction)

A portrait of a middle-aged man perpetually lost in thought on his balcony, tracing the quiet rhythms of a life lived largely inward.

The Scent of Felicity | Dir. Alaa Nasser

(Short Nonfiction)

In a joyful Nubian gathering, women come together to make Al-Reeha, a traditional perfume gifted to brides as a symbol of love and heritage.

Lost & Found Dir. Farah Helal

(Student Fiction) A university student's search for a missing laptop spirals into an existential confrontation with identity, guilt and time inside a cold, bureaucratic lost-and-found office.

Between Two Flows | Dir. Ahmed Peshto

(Short Nonfiction)

A group of young filmmakers band together to make a low-budget short, testing their creativity against the limits of their resources and ambitions.

Background Action | Dir. Karim Nada

(Student Fiction)

On the tense set of a film noir production, two background actors quietly form a connection, take after take.

Action, Nadia, Cut! | Dir. Salma El Sharnouby

(Short Fiction)

A young actress determined to commit fully to an audition scene finds every attempt derailed — obstacles that gradually expose deeper pressures on her sense of self as a woman, a performer and a daughter.

Cairo Tea Factory | Dir. Ahmed Farrag

(Student Fiction)

A cup of coffee throws the workers of the Cairo Tea Factory into a high-stakes investigation, led by the factory heir and its youngest CEO in the history of the Second Industrial Zone.

Manassa No. 2 — Thursday, May 21st

Bone Appetit | Dir. Alaa Ahmed

(Student Fiction) A smiling woman runs her independently owned restaurant with grace, as the singular circumstances of her life are gradually unveiled.

Silver Tongue | Dir. Omar Ali

(Short Fiction)

A brash self-help TV host receives distressing texts from his girlfriend moments before going live. His composure cracks on air, exposing a lisp that quickly goes viral — and a deadline that may be impossible to meet.

Construction Project 2.0 | Dir. Ahmed Saber

(Short Fiction)

A corporate worker suffocated by his job descends into surreal visions that force him toward a life-altering decision.

Papa Told Me | Dir. Passant Ahmed ElHendwai

(Short Fiction)

A 10-year-old boy who loves ice cream defies his father's strict ban in secret — until one day, noticing his father is unwell, he chooses to eat it openly, in a quiet act of liberated joy.

What Your Mama Forgot to Tell You | Dir. Mariam Nasser

(Student Nonfiction)

Through the memory of a first piece of lingerie, five Egyptian women navigate the hidden landscapes of their pasts, moving through identity, bodily autonomy and the unspoken narratives within their closest relationships.

The Exempt One | Dir. Nassef

(Short Fiction)

A man drowning in debt ignores relentless calls from collectors while his wife waits for a simple miracle to end the crisis.

Where the Winds Come From | Dir. Hassan Nouby

(Short Nonfiction)

Travelling to Aswan in search of Issa, a celebrated horseman in the local racing scene, the filmmaker finds that the pursuit becomes as much the subject as the man himself.

Manassa No. 3 — Thursday, May 21st

My Name Is Dahab | Dir. Ahmed Yacoub

(Short Fiction)

An adolescent boy must fulfil his younger brother's wish to become a tree before fleeing the barren no-man's-land where they were abandoned.

Queer Exile | Dir. Awadalla

(Short Nonfiction)

In the aftermath of Egypt's revolution, an activist arrives in Berlin searching for a new beginning, caught between the ghosts of what he left behind and the hostility of what awaits him.

A Friend, No Longer Here | Dir. Ahmed El-Shabrawy

(Student Nonfiction)

Returning to Egypt after years abroad, a man revisits the severed friendship he left behind in Saudi Arabia — and asks himself what becomes of relationships past their expiration.

Shatti wa Amani | Dir. Nada Ahmed Moussa, Farida Reda Kodsy, Salma Tarek Elwarrdany, Aly Elfekky & Karim Elattar

(Student Nonfiction)

Haunted by addiction and trauma, Mohammed finds salvation in the waters of Dahab, guided by his sister Fatima, eventually becoming a freediving athlete. A documentary about resilience, sibling bonds and the possibility of healing.

Breaking Out of Ali and Maher's Base | Dir. Abanoub Youssef

(Short Fiction)

A runaway donkey sends its wealthy owners on a restless chase through a quiet village, stirring hidden tensions and exposing the absurdities of class division in rural life.

The Devil and the Bicycle |  Dir. Sharon Hakim

(Short Fiction)

A 13-year-old Lebanese girl from an interfaith family prepares for her First Communion. As her sensuality awakens, an entirely different kind of ritual begins to take shape.

Manassa No. 4 — Friday, May 22nd

Ronaldoz Kids | Dir. Hatem Emam

(Student Nonfiction)

Children playing and singing in the streets — unspoiled by technology, their dreams and joyful spirits captured in a graduation documentary of quiet, authentic innocence.

Attempting to Remember My Father's Face | Dir. Tariq Abdalla

(Short Nonfiction)

As his father's face fades from memory, Tariq discovers a videotape that may contain the only footage of him, setting off a process of digitisation and painful recollection. S the Wolf Dir. Sameh Alaa

(Short Fiction) A middle-aged man sits in his childhood bedroom, reflecting on his adolescence through the unlikely lens of his hair — its growth and loss threading together a larger portrait of a life and its relationships.

The Day After | Dir. Zeina Amr (Student Fiction)

Hana spends the day after a night with Ali in quiet contemplation. Dreamy, Uncertain, & Dying Everyday Dir. Hossam Waleed

(Student Fiction)

An 18-year-old torn between his ambition to become a psychology teacher and his struggles with communication navigates adolescence in a heartfelt journey of self-discovery.

Children Are Not Allowed | Dir. Omar Hesham

(Short Fiction)

Three children take advantage of their mother's absence to indulge in the forbidden — discovering, alongside fear, new feelings for the first time.

Manassa No. 5 — Friday, May 22nd Sousou's TikTok Dir. Sondos Shabayek (Short Fiction)

Going live on TikTok to secretly sell beauty products behind her controlling husband's back, Sousou's cheerful performance cracks when he enters the room — the livestream becoming a harsh confrontation that dissolves the boundary between performance and reality.

All is Good | Dir. Marriam Moustafa

(Student Fiction)

Two sisters cope with their father's death in opposing ways, silence widening the distance between them until a messy confrontation forces something through. Abbasya Apartment Dir. Mohamed Hany El Khatib

(Student Nonfiction)

Returning to his childhood apartment, Mohamed encounters his father's unfinished archives — a discovery that compels him to revisit a fragmented past before it fades entirely.

Construction Site | Dir. Mohamed Sherif Bushnaq

(Short Nonfiction)

In the heart of the city, demolition disrupts everyday life, diminishing people and fading their presence as their spaces are claimed around them.

Cairo, Standstill | Dir. Amr Abed

(Short Fiction)

Days before permanently leaving Egypt, a Cairene couple attempt to sell their car. A double-parked vehicle blocking theirs threatens the deal, and the chaos of the city becomes a container for everything they cannot say.

Voie publique | Dir. Farah El Mokadem

(Short Nonfiction)

Drawing on personal experience, the filmmaker works with friends to explore public displays of affection in Cairo's streets — romantic moments carefully repressed and monitored by a morality enforced from all directions.

The Loud Silence | Dir. Maya Walid

(Student Fiction)

Past, present and future unfold simultaneously as a young man confronts his inner turmoil in a silent visual journey — ordinary moments giving shape to emotions that refuse to be spoken.

Manassa No. 6 — Saturday, May 23rd

Voices from & to a Diaspora: Aleya | Dir. Omar Abogabal

(Short Nonfiction)

An intimate portrait of Aleya, a trans woman who recently relocated from Cairo to Berlin, capturing her first year navigating loss, family disownment and a new sense of self.

Leftovers | Dir. Hanan Hashem Barakat

(Student Fiction)

On the same day she receives a potential cancer diagnosis and her divorce decree, Nadia retreats into denial — her neighbour's attempts at consolation landing in a silence too deep to breach.

The Mother and the Bear | Dir. Yasmina El Kamaly

(Short Nonfiction)

The filmmaker uses her mother's fraught relationship with her own mother as a lens into family history, tracing the dysfunctional circuits through which affection is sought and withheld across generations. Of Burning Memories & Wounds Dir. Suha Belal

(Short Fiction)

Caring for Anise — an elderly woman slipping into dementia — Noura contemplates the family she may never allow herself to have.

Zizou | Dir. Khaled Moeit

(Short Fiction)

A 13-year-old boy's relentless attempts to befriend the most popular kid in the neighbourhood leave him vulnerable to ridicule, stirring something unresolved within him.

My Brother, My Brother | Dir. Abdelrahman Dnewar & Saad Dnewar

(Short Fiction)

A split narrative traces both sides of the shared memory between identical twins — from the moment they were fused in their mother's womb to the moment one of them is gone.

Out-of-Competition: Maqamāt — Bodies of Water — Thursday, May 21

Guest-curated by A Kiss in the Desert, this program gathers five international short films under the theme of water — elemental, threatened and deeply personal.

Birr Gardi | Dir. Bentley Brown & Tahir Ben Mahamat Zene (Chad)

People gather at a well on the southern edge of the desert during a brutal drought, the landscape stripped of livestock and the grass huts that once lined the horizon.

Fille de l'eau | Dir. Sandra Desmazières (France/Portugal/Netherlands)

A woman who has spent her life freediving — gliding through seaweed and rock — pauses to remember the loved ones that time has taken and the landscapes it has reshaped.

The Seine's Tears | Dir. Yanis Belaid, Eliott Benard, Nicolas Mayeur, Etienne Moulin, Hadrien Pinot, Lisa Vicente, Philippine Singer & Alice Letailleur (France)

October 17, 1961. Algerian workers descend into the streets of Paris to protest a mandatory curfew imposed by the police prefecture. God Is Shy Dir. Jocelyn Charles (France)

On a train, two passengers pass the time sketching their deepest fears — until a mysterious third traveller intrudes, her relationship with fear far less innocent than their drawings suggest.

Beneath Which Rivers Flow | Dir. Ali Yahya (Iraq)

In the marshlands of southern Iraq, Ibrahim lives as a stranger in the world, his only companion a faithful buffalo, as an environmental catastrophe threatens the only life he knows.

Out-of-Competition: Cineolio — Bigger Picture — Friday, May 22nd

Curated by Cineolio, a platform dedicated to expanding the reach of short film internationally, this program brings five films from five countries across three continents.

DreamLink | Dir. Kalani Gacon (Australia)

A troubled teenager turns to DreamLink, an app that promises to merge dreams and reality and connect them with the person they need most.

Life in Pink Like in the Movies | Dir. Christophe Saber (Switzerland)

Old Super 8 reels found in a second-hand store draw a young filmmaker into a stranger's past — and the discovery that the image of a perfect family rarely survives contact with the real one.

Love | Dir. James Gallagher

(United States)

A story of fathers, sons and tennis.

Memorium | Dir. Fabrice Mathieu (France)

A dead man's journey into the afterlife, inspired by the world of French artist Marc Giai-Miniet.

The Shore | Dir. Eron Sheean (Netherlands)

Abandoned on a windswept beach by his parents, a young boy moves through a surreal journey in time — and a contemplation of his own mortality.