Egyptian filmmaker Morad Mostafa’s debut feature, Aisha Can’t Fly Away, premiered in the Un Certain Regard section at Cannes—the first Egyptian film in the category since 2016. Inspired by a haunting encounter with a distressed African girl on a Cairo microbus, the film follows Aisha, a 26-year-old Sudanese caregiver navigating tension, exploitation, and identity in Ain Shams, an Egyptian neighborhood that is home to many African migrants. Through Aisha’s blurred line between dreams and reality, including blackmail by a local criminal, Mostafa challenges Egypt’s cinematic norms by centering a non-Egyptian heroine. This film concludes his trilogy exploring Sudanese-Egyptian intersections, offering a gritty yet magical realist lens on society’s margins. It’s a bold, empathetic portrait of urban survival—and a long-overdue shift in narrative perspective.
OkayAfrica
