The past year has further cemented Film Clinic’s position as a leading Egyptian independent production company, securing premieres and awards at festivals, creating an Oscar buzz and anticipation around its pipeline of upcoming films.
Four titles, either produced or distributed by the firm, have been selected for this year’s Red Sea International Film Festival: Abu Bakr Shawky’s Hajjan; Kaouther Ben Hania’s Four Daughters; Sofia Alaoui’s Animalia; and Afef Ben Mahmoud and Khalil Benkirane’s Backstage.
“Hajjan is our biggest recent production by far, taking considerable effort over a journey of more than two years,” says Mohamed Hefzy, the Egyptian screenwriter and producer who co-founded Film Clinic with director Amr Salama in 2005. The coming-of-age story of a young boy who enters the world of camel racing premiered at Toronto and marks the second feature from Shawky, whose 2018 film Yomeddine played in Competition at Cannes. Sales on Hajjan are handled by Film Constellation.
Hefzy, who has more than 40 feature film credits to his name, produced alongside Rula Nasser of Jordan’s The Imaginarium Films and the King Abdulaziz Center for World Culture (Ithra).
“We are highly interested in supporting new directors by distributing their films,” says Hefzy, pointing to Four Daughters, Animalia and Backstage, the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) releases for which will be handled through Film Clinic Indie Distribution.
Backstage, a drama about a Moroccan dance company, plays in Competition at Red Sea following its world premiere at Venice. Animalia, in which a pregnant woman’s life is upended by a supernatural phenomenon, screens in Festival Favorites, having won a special jury award at Sundance earlier this year.
Set to join Hefzy at Red Sea is Film Clinic associate producer and partner Daniel Ziskind and Jessica Khoury, who heads up acquisitions for Film Clinic Indie Distribution.
“Our films have collected more regional and international awards than any other production company in the Arab world,” claims Hefzy. “We were the first Egyptian company to win the Cannes Critics’ Week award, for Omar El Zohairy’s Feathers,” he recalls of the historic 2021 win.
Film Clinic is hoping to see further accolades bestowed on its titles in the coming months, with three of its films submitted to the Academy Awards by their respective countries in the best international feature category.
Four Daughters, a docudrama examining how a mother’s two eldest daughters were radicalised, is Tunisia’s submission following a festival run that began in Cannes. And Film Clinic co-produced both Omar Hilal’s comedy Voy! Voy! Voy!, submitted by Egypt after topping the local box office on release in September, and Hanging Gardens by Ahmed Yassin Al Daradji, selected by Iraq; the latter title won the best feature prize at Red Sea last year.
“We are very selective, which is why we prefer not to work on more than six or seven films per year,” says Hefzy. “We focus on films that we are really passionate about, which has led to many of our films being submitted to the Academy Awards in the past few years.”
Backing MENA filmmakers
The company will continue to support and give a voice to Arab and Egyptian filmmakers, with a raft of anticipated features in the works.
These include Seeking Haven For Mr. Rambo, the debut feature of Egyptian filmmaker Khaled Mansour, which is set to wrap shooting in Cairo in mid-December. The drama, about a man who goes on a journey to save his dog and best friend Rambo, was selected for the Red Sea Lodge development programme in 2021 and received a production grant from the Red Sea Fund earlier this year. The cast includes Essam Omar and Rakeen Saad.
Written by Mansour and Mohamed El-Hosseiny and produced by Rasha Hosny, Film Clinic has boarded and will distribute in MENA territories through its indie distribution arm.
Further titles include The Inevitable Journey Of Finding The Wedding Dress by Jaylan Auf, starring Yasmin Raeis and Ahmed Khaled Saleh, in which a bride races across Cairo in search of a wedding dress; and Basma, Fatima AlBanawi’s drama tackling the theme of mental illness in Saudi, which shot in Jeddah and has been acquired by Netflix. It marks the directorial debut of the Saudi actress, who also takes the title role and previously starred in Barakah Meets Barakah, the first film handled by Film Clinic when it moved into distribution in 2017.
The company is also co-producing All That’s Left Of You, the next feature from Palestinian-American writer/director Cherien Dabis, known for award-winning drama Amreeka (which played at Sundance and Cannes in 2009) and who recently helmed episodes of US streaming series Ozark and Only Murders In The Building.
Hefzy describes the film as “an historic epic, which tells the story of Palestine and how we got to where we are today”.
The Israel-Hamas war has shifted plans to film there: “We had to change the plan because of the war in Gaza. We wanted to shoot in Palestine but it isn’t possible anymore.
“This war is a humanitarian catastrophe by all standards, and we are all shocked by what is happening,” he continues. “Many events and festivals have been cancelled, and while I understand the reasons [for calling them off], this cannot go on because so many people make a living from working in the film industry.
“We need to make films to tell our stories and help change any false perceptions there may be about our societies.”
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