ALFILM Festival: Life After Siham

In the organizer's words:

In this followup to his celebrated debut The Virgin, The Copts, and Me (2011), Egyptian-French filmmaker Namir Abdel Messeeh returns once more with an intimate portrait of his family.

Stretching the limits of film as a medium, he still manages for his beloved, larger-than-life mother Siham to take center stage even after her absence.

Filmed over a decade, Life After Siham seamlessly interweaves archival material and intimate home videos with scenes from two classics of Egyptian cinema: The Dawn of a New Day (1964) and The Return of the Prodigal Son (1976) by Youssef Chahine. Cinematic canon, constant filming, and personal memories mesh together beautifully in this ultimate tribute to film as a medium for family healing, time travel, and communicating with the beyond. (JH)

In cooperation with the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung