YOMEDDINE
This Cannes award-winning road movie follows two very unlikely friends as they journey across Egypt in search of long-lost families and a place to call home.
Inspired by neorealist cinema and his own short documentary work, director A.B. Shawky crafts a life-affirming tale of two outsiders on the open road with warmth and a generous spirit. Life has never been easy for Beshay, played with remarkable expressiveness by first-time actor Rady Gamal. A childhood bout of leprosy has left his hands withered and his face scarred and he spends his days scavenging discarded treasures from the local garbage dump. After his wife passes away, Beshay begins thinking about his own family, who left him as a baby at the gates of a leper colony. When a scribbled note in a dusty old file suggests where his mother once lived, Beshay hitches up his beloved donkey to a rickety old cart and hits the road, sneakily accompanied by a stowaway: his young friend and fellow orphan, Obama. Undaunted by their lack of clear directions— they’re essentially told to follow the Nile and then turn left— the duo travel south through Egypt, barraged by constant setbacks, but also encouraged by kindred spirits, as each encounter and experience brings Beshay ever closer to discovering the family he’s never known.
CAST: Rady Gamal, Ahmed Abdelhafiz
In Competition: First Feature Award
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