Back to the Square
Five Stories from the Egyptian revolution
A year after the euphoria on Tahrir Square, the demonstrators’ goals have not even come close to being reached. The country is ruled with an iron fist and there is still no democracy. The ‘eye of the world’ has moved elsewhere. How things have been in Egypt since 25 January 2011 is explained using five portraits of people from various walks of life.
What have the sacrifices on Tahrir Square at the start of 2011 yielded? Unfortunately not a great deal, that much is apparent from the stories of five Egyptians involved, about six months after the historic revolution. A young horse herdsman tells how he drove to the square to ask for the pyramids to be opened again; he only just managed to survive that day. A taxi driver talks about his six years in prison, the torture, and how the police now behaves worse than ever. A young woman talks about intimidations and unjust arrests, which according to human rights lawyers are happening continuously. The young Salwa describes how she met her first love during the demonstrations. And then the brother of Michael Nabil: a blogger who was arrested because of his Internet comments and is now on hunger strike - he is followed on Tahrir Square during the protests that still continue against the ongoing violations of human rights.
Technical Specifications
Year 2012
Length 83 min
Director Petr Lom
Producer Torstein Grude
Language Arabic
Production companies Piraya Film, Lom Films
Production countries Norway, Canada
Sales/Distribution International Sales: Kudos Family / Festival Distribution: The Norwegian Film Institute
World Premiere International Film Festival Rotterdam 2012
IMDB https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2210449/
Gallery
Awards
Millenium Docs Against Gravity Festival, Amnesty International Award 2012 - best documentary
Honorable Mention, Documentary Competition, The Norwegian Short Film Festival 2012
Grand Jury Award, Guam International Film Festival 2012
Jury Prize, Hong Kong Film Festival 2012
Festivals
2012
International Film Festival Rotterdam
One World - International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival, Prague
Hong Kong International Film Festival
Movies That Matter
Lichter Filmfest Frankfurt International
Middle East Now Film Festival
Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival
DOK.fest - München International Documentary Film Festival
DocAviv, Tel Aviv International Documentary Film Festival
Planete+ Doc Film Festival
One World in Brussels
The Norwegian Short Film Festival
Ismailia International Festival for Documentary & Short Films
DokuFest - International Documentary and Short Film Festival Kosovo
Golden Apricot - Yerevan International Film Festival
Motovun Film Festival
Tri Continental Film Festival
Batumi Film Festival
KAPITTEL Stavanger International Festival of Literature and Freedom of Speech
Nordisk Panorama - 5 Cities Festival, Oulu
One World Kyrgyzstan
Erasmus Documentary Film Festival
Guam International Film Festival
Asiatica Filmmediale - Incontri Con Il Cinema Asiatico
Antenna Documentary Festival
Astra Film Festival
Inconvenient Films - Vilnius International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival
Festival des Libertés
CPH:DOX
Leeds International Film Festival
Aarhus Film Festival
Literature in Autumn
Reel Awareness - Amnesty International Human Rights Film Festival, Toronto
International Human Rights Film Festival This Human World
Mostra de Cinema Oriente Médio
One World Human Rights International Documentary Film Festival, Prishtina
Paris International Human Rights Film Festival
2013
!f Istanbul
Documentary Fortnight: MoMA's International Festival of Nonfiction Film, New York
Keswick Film Festival
Thessaloniki International Documentary Film Festival
CMU International Film Festival
Docudays UA - International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival
Addis International Film Festival
Nuremberg International Human Rights Film Festival