Since 2014, when critic Samir Farid was president, the Cairo International Film Festival has enjoyed a great deal of diversity and power. Farid added three parallel sections to the festival's core programme: Arab Cinema Horizons, organised by the Film Syndicate, headed the Mossed Fouda and directed by Sayed Fouad; Critics' Week, organised by the Egyptian Film Critics Association, headed by Mohsen Weifi and managed by Ahmed Hassouna; and Cinema of Tomorrow, organised by the Students' Union of the Film Institute, supervised by Head of the Institute Ghada Gobara and director Saad Hendawi. Arab Cinema Horizons opened with the Egyptian film Lahazat Intehariya (Suicidal Moments) by filmmaker Eman Al-Naggar. The film presents the existential crisis of a young woman who is about to emigrate to Australia following her husband when her mother's death prevents her from embarking on this new life. In her debut, screenwriter and filmmaker Al-Naggar's times her story to coincide with the January Revolution without delving into its political implications or consequences but only as a supplementary element in the background and part of the force that disrupts the young woman's travel plans. The opening scenes show the young woman, Marwa (Donia Maher) on her way to her mother's house in Downtown. A demonstration prevents her from getting there, however, and she is forced to park and cross the Qasr Al-Nil bridge on foot. It is 25 January 2011. The viewer witnesses the more important incident of the film when Marwa discovers her mother dead inside her huge apartment in an old upper-class building. Marwa is too horrified to pay attention to her aunt's instructions on how to prepare for the funeral. She is preoccupied with what to do with the apartment and whether she can really leave everything behind. Al-Naggar highlights details of the apartment to convey the atmosphere of Cairo society's upper middle class, which had lived in such buildings since the start of the 20th century. Meanwhile she conveys Marwa's hesitant state now that she has lost all that connects her to Cairo except for her aunt who, though a pleasant character, is resentful of Marwa. The screenplay incorporates a number of subplots, which makes it unusual for with a film with such a simple story. For instance, Marwa knows that her mother went on having feelings for her father, whom she had divorced 25 years before. Marwa later finds out from her aunt that when she suspected him of cheating on her her mother did the same to her father and by the time she realised she was wrong it was too late – he had found out about her betrayal. The film also depicts the late mother's relationship with her female servant, who is so much like a daughter to her she is jealous of Marwa and feels she should share the inheritance. She even searches for and finds a precious necklace in a wooden jewellery box. The viewer is also introduced to the psychiatrist Sami (Zaki Fatin), who lives next door: he first appears writing while listening to classical music in the bath. Later he is seen quarrelling with his daughter who lives with her mother and spends the weekend with him. The aunt is seen returning from the funeral with her sister's coffin: unable to see her go, she decided to hold onto the corpse for another two day in secret. Marwa's travel date is 28 January 2011, the Friday of Anger. Both because she wants to find out what will happen to her mother and because of the demonstrations she cannot travel. The screenplay doesn't create a problem and proceed to solve it. Instead it creates a general mood, hinting that the mother (who was only 56) actually killed herself, something Marwa too seems to be considering. Even Sami, whose help she seeks, will attempt suicide. The viewer can easily appreciate the efforts of Al-Naggar and producer Mohamed Al-Tohami for the past few years through the various stages of making an independent film. The film received a fund from the Ministry of Culture a few years ago, but it wasn't enough; sometimes filmmakers are forced to shrink their budget to make their film possible. These are the exhausting paths that independent filmmakers must tread, especially with the current financial crisis in Egypt. The fact that a film like this should be made and enjoy this level of quality is a huge achievement in itself. *** Civil wars provide as much inspiration for filmmakers as revolutions, and filmmaker Mirjana Karanovic's debut A Good Wife (which is part of the CIFF's official competition) is inspired by the war in former Yugoslavia. Harder to make than war films as such are films in which the war is seamlessly woven into the dramatic conflict. Karanovic presents a housewife in her fifties practicing her daily routine of cleaning and cooking in a small house living with her husband and their teenage daughter; they also have an elder daughter living in Belgrade and a son who comes to eat and leave his laundry to be washed and leaves again. The film revolves around two discoveries made by the wife, who is deeply in love with her husband though he is a conventional, quiet character. First, she finds out that he and his friends committed a huge massacre of unarmed prisoners of war. Secondly, she discovers that she has advanced-stage breast cancer and she has to prepare for a surgery. The viewer might feel that the film has a direct approach in handling the story of the wife discovering the prisoners of war story while cleaning an abandoned room in the second floor of the house, where the military uniform of her husband and a video tape revealed the facts. But the screenplay doesn't depend on this coincidence for developing the drama; it creates another sequence in which the wife watching the videotape discovers that the crime was recorded. When there is demand for such evidence on the satellite channels seeking to prosecute war criminals, the relationship between the man and one of his friends breaks down as the friend begins to blackmail him; in a following scene the viewer is informed that this friend died in a car accident as he was known for his alcoholism, but the wife suspects that her husband might have had a hand in killing him. In the final scenes of the film, the wife sends this video tape to the prosecutor and then she goes for her breast surgery where the filmmaker decides to conclude her film in a naïve gesture: she is to remove the left breast, the one close to her heart. *** The Hungarian film Kills on Wheels directed by Attila Till – also in the official competition – brings together different genres including the traditional violence of action cinema and light comedy scenes as he magically combines fantasy and realism. The film focuses on a young man in his 20s whose legs are atrophied, confining him to a wheelchair as well as his friend who suffers from an intermediate stage of cerebral palsy but can hardly walk. The two young men are introduced to a third in a wheelchair, a former fireman whose his injury seems to have happened at work. The film starts with a magnificent jail scene in which several inmates in wheelchairs start fighting at mealtime. The movement, the editing, the soundtrack and the photography all point to a brilliant filmmaker in complete possession of all his tools. A man in a wheelchair – the former fireman – is soon seen coming out of the prison gate carrying a bag; he is about to start his life once again. On the other hand, the two protagonists who live in a special institute for the disabled have an upcoming project of a graphic novel whose hero is the that man. As the three of them meet the former fireman introduces the two artists to his world; it becomes clear that he is a serial killer who is employed by one of the mafia heads to get rid of rival mafiosi. The mafia head character, who owns four wild Rottweilers, may be exaggerated but it is consistent with the drama. The fireman-cum-serial killer seeks help from his two friends on his missions and their lives are instantly filled with adventure. When the mafia head finds out about the help he's getting he is upset and orders him to kill his two friends them so that no evidence can surface later. The serial killer attempts to drown them in the lake but he feels too guilty to go through with it. The screenplay also discusses his family, focusing on his mother who used to accompany him to his doctor while the father abandoned them after his birth. His mother repeatedly tells him that their separation has nothing to do with him, but still he has a hidden feeling that his father left because of his disability. On another hand, his health is deteriorating and his doctor informs him that he needs an urgent surgery for his back or he won't even be able to sit… Starting on a note of film noir, towards the end the film shifts gears as the young man goes to hospital for his surgery – now that he has completed it with the help of his two disabled friends, he sends the graphic novel to his father – and only then does the viewer realise that all the violence and the crime in the film were the characters' imagination, happening only in the graphic novel.
