Egyptian filmmaker Sarah El-Shazly will present her feature-length documentary Bintak (Your Daughter) for the first time at the Horizons of Arab Cinema competition at the 47th Cairo International Film Festival, which takes place from 11 to 20 November.
This Egyptian-Belgian joint venture is produced by Marianne Khoury and Julie Frère, with Misr International Films and Derive as production companies.
The film follows a 32-year-old Egyptian woman named Sarah, who tries to end her close relationship with her mother, Marianne Khoury, the film's producer and director, and Youssef Chahine's niece. The film mixes old family-archive footage with contemporary scenes, comparing the past to the present.
The crew comprises cinematographer Mathilde Le Masson and editor Faustine Cros, with editing consultant Nadia Ben Rachid. El-Shazly reads the voiceover, while Yousry Nasrallah directed the narration.
The film marks El-Shazly's return to Cairo, where she won the Best Short Film prize at the festival's 42nd edition in 2020 for her short film Isabelle. El-Shazly graduated from American University of Paris with a degree in film studies, trained in directing at EICTV in Cuba, and worked as a film archivist at Cinémathèque Française.
Based on the archives of one of Egypt's most famous film families, the film is a personal work for festival programmers and documentary buyers, and it premieres at Arab Horizons.
