Cairo Streets

Abdellah Taïa has published several novels with Édition du Seuil, including L’Armée du Salut. He adapted it into his first film in 2014, which was screened at the Mostra of Venice. In 2024, he directed his second feature film, Cabo Negro.

A word from the selection committee : 
Video footage from Cairo, 2007. Abdellah searches for Omar through the streets, cafés, metro, and behind every face. The love that guides him in his quest becomes the love of the filmmaker for everything he encounters – the love that beats somewhere within the crowd and slips into the frame, the love that governs both the frame and what lies within. Abdellah Taïa’s roving camera lifts a veil over the Egyptian capital, teeming with possible fictions, with modesty and open smiles. And this buzzing hive is transfigured, placidly welcoming the lover’s feverish pursuit and melancholy -- in a country where homosexuality remains illegal, but which is also the homeland of Youssef Chahine, whom Tala met a year before his death, who appears here as the protective figure of the film.  A raw, radiant, and simple gesture, in which – through the very act of recording and the fertile impulse of editing (a narrative thread as light as a feather) – a small part of the world is restored to its pulsating, lively depth.

Florence Maillard