Cornerhouse

From the director of the award-winning film Eye of the Sun (2008) comes El Batout’s most recent film Hawi (The Juggler), winner of the Best Arab Film Award at the 2010 Doha Tribeca Film Festival. Through the alleys of Alexandria, Ibrahim El Batout interweaves the story of one of the oldest cities in history with the personal journeys of various deeply-rooted and captivating characters. Inspired by an underground song entitled “Hawi”, Batout successfully portrays his characters’ everyday reality and their struggle to survive. These struggles, ironically, culminate in hope and the renewal of life!

El Batout is one of Egypt’s pioneering independent filmmakers. He has travelled widely across the globe and made a number of documentaries in war-tarnished areas, including the Iran-Iraq war (1987); the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka (1992); the massacres in Rwanda (1994); the war in Kosovo (1999); and many others. In 2004, he stepped into the world of fiction and made his first feature film Ithaki in 2005.

We are pleased to welcome director Ibrahim El Batout for a post-screening Q&A.

This event is supported by CASAW (Centre for the Advanced Study of the Arab World) at The University of Manchester. For more information visit: www.casaw.ac.uk

More Info

Cast: Hanan Youssef, Sherif El Dessouki, Mohamed El Sayed, Fady Iskandar
Country: Egypt
Year: 2010