Capital Celluloid 2017 - Day 261: Thu Sep 21

In The Last Days of the City (El Said, 2016): ICA Cinema, 8.15pm


This screening will be followed by a Q&A with filmmaker Tamer El Said and actor Khalid Abdalla. The film is on a short run at the ICA until September 28th. Full details here.

AnOther Magazine review:
The walls, alleys and skylines of downtown Cairo, often bathed in the fading light of sunset, dominate this piercingly melancholy yet stirring portrait of the Egyptian capital by its director Tamer El Said. In its eye for rich visual detail, it also captures didactic stickers in elevators and other strictures inscribed in a cityscape noisy with signals. It centres on a filmmaker (played by Khaled Abdalla) who is trying to make a film about the city he loves, even as he’s worn down by the drudgery of everyday life (he’s struggling to find an apartment to rent, and the woman he’s not yet over is leaving town). His artist friends in Baghdad and Beirut share their emotionally complex quandaries on whether or not to emigrate. It’s before the 2011 revolution, and as unrest stirs in the streets against Mubarak’s regime, an air of endings is in the air.
Carmen Gray

Here (and above) is the trailer.

No comments: