Egyptian-French director Namir Abdel Messeh’s “Life After Siham” is being screened at a special screening section at Cairo International Airport. The film festival will be held on November 19th and November 20th. It has previously received development support from the 2021 Cairo Film Connection. In addition to the screening in Cairo, the film will also be shown at IDFA, Turin and Marrakech.
The autobiographical hybrid doc is co-produced by Message’s production company Oweda Films with Camille Lemur, produced through Paris-based Les Films Disi, and supported by two Egyptian production partners, Ambient Light and Red Star. Distributed by Meteor Films. The selling company is Split Screen.
After its world premiere at ACID in Cannes 2025, the film was screened in Zurich and recently won the El Gouna Star Award for Best Arab Documentary at Egypt’s El Gouna Festival.
The film is based on themes developed by Messe in her debut feature documentary, The Virgin, the Copts and I, which was screened at Cannes, Berlin, CPH:DOX and theatrically in France, where it attracted 112,000 admissions.
Both projects are connected to his parents, who were forced to flee to France in the 1970s after their father was imprisoned under Nasser’s regime for his communist involvement.
In his new work, Message explores the power of cinema to connect with his deceased parents, revive their memories, and bring back lost memories. The director spoke to Variety about the film and its development process, which spanned more than a decade.
How did your project come about?
After my last film, my mother told me that she was willing to work on a new film, but this time she wanted me to make a “real film” with actors like in classic Egyptian films. I started working on the script, and when I found out she had advanced cancer, I immediately told her we should make a movie together, but she passed away shortly after that in 2014.
I started making films as an act of survival and resistance. To say, in a way, she’s still here. With the help of photographer Nicolas Duchesne, we filmed her funeral and then some scenes with her father. But it was so painful that I stopped doing it completely for a few years. Much later, I showed the images to a friend of mine who was an editor, and he told me I had to make a movie. Because it’s a universal story.
Were you originally planning to include more fictional elements?
Yes, I wrote a script that included images of my mother and the funeral, but the rest was fiction. That’s what we presented at Cairo Film Connection. But after about three years of development, presenting the film to TV stations, investors, and CNC, they couldn’t get funding and almost gave up. Instead, I decided to shoot some scenes with my father. I called my co-producer Camille. We shot some new footage with my dad, but from the moment we started editing the film with all the documentary material, we realized there was no need to shoot fictionalized scenes. Instead, we came up with the idea of using archival film to tell the story, the scenes that were missing from my film. So it’s actually a movie that was constructed during the editing process, invented itself, and was completely rewritten.
How important was it to have the world premiere in Cannes?
We submitted this film to the Cannes Film Festival because we thought that unless it was screened at a major international film festival, it would have no chance of being released in theaters and gaining an audience. Cannes saw a rough cut of the film and said, “We’ll take it,” and everything accelerated from there. A nearly completed version was shown at Cannes and received great acclaim. Then we went back to the editing room. There were still some final touches that needed to be finalized, such as the sound and music. We completed the final version of the film, which was screened in Zurich and won several awards. He then participated in the El Gouna Festival and won three awards. I mean, movies are starting to have a career.
Dad is an important figure in this movie.
Immediately after the funeral, I spent several days filming with him. And then in 2023, this crisis happened where everyone was saying no to this movie. When I learned that my father was living in a nursing home and would soon pass away, I knew I had to take some pictures before he passed away. I didn’t want to accept my mother’s death, so I started the movie with my mother’s death, but the movie ends with me accepting my father’s death. It’s the moment when we learn to say “I love you” and say goodbye and accept the fact that life goes on, and that death is a part of life and is traumatic for everyone. This movie had a therapeutic aspect for me.
What was the reaction from people at the screening?
The reaction was really great. After watching this movie, some people who lost their parents or whose parents were about to die said, “I cried, but it felt like I was given permission to say goodbye and I felt better.After watching this movie, I wanted to go see my parents.”
Why was it important for you to screen this film in Egypt, first in El Gouna and now in Cairo?
It’s like taking your parents back to Egypt. They left Egypt in the 1970s, not because they did not love their country, but for political and economic reasons. We always live in Egypt in our hearts. As a child, I was raised by my aunt in Egypt. My parents have always been Egyptian. My father lived in Egypt even though he was in France. He read all the Egyptian newspapers and had mostly Egyptian friends. Egypt was always in his heart. We were able to return to Egypt during our vacation. But it was an expulsion, and it was irreversible. They were buried in France. Making this film, showing it in Egypt and winning awards is like bringing them back to their homeland.
How did Egyptian audiences react to this film?
When we showed the film at El Gouna, it was really beautiful. Because I felt that the audience was very upset at first because I was exposing personal stories, intimate stories, in front of the camera and people were talking very openly about death and everything else. I think the audience was a little nervous at first, but something truly unbelievable happened. At some point in the film, a change occurred and the audience felt entitled to accept the emotions they themselves experienced while watching the film. I can’t say it any other way. They started laughing and crying. The ending of the movie was incredible. People in the audience came up to me and hugged me and kissed me. A complete stranger. Even if it’s taboo for us. There is a certain level of modesty in Arab countries where certain topics are not discussed, especially in front of the camera. All issues related to love and death and emotions between children and parents.
How important were festivals to the development of film?
It’s very important. The support we received wasn’t huge, but psychologically it was very important because suddenly we had people saying they believed in our project. Development support includes Atlas Workshop, Cairo Film Connection, Arab Cultural Fund, Doha Film Institute, and Cinegoona. Two Egyptian co-producers, Ambient Light and Red Star, also financed the film. I also invested some of my own money to produce the film. My father passed away and I invested some of his inheritance. It seemed natural to me to use this legacy to make a film in honor of my parents. Once we entered the editing stage, we also received support from France, CNC, and the Ile-de-France region.
What role did co-producer Camille Lemmel play?
She has always been my safety net. She always helped me find the balance of not being too close to the subject and not too far away. It wasn’t just my movie, because Camille’s mother passed away during the making of the movie. The film’s editor, Benoît Aravouine, had lost his father several years earlier. So in a sense we were all orphans.
Archive images of Youssef Chahine’s films play an important role.
I used these images to transform my parents into fictional movie heroes. Using images from Youssef Chahine’s films is precisely because I salvaged some old images from his films and used them to recreate a kind of fiction. In a sense, I kept my promise and fulfilled my mother’s wish to make a “real movie.”
Was it difficult to obtain permission to use images from the Youssef Chahine archive?
We were really lucky because Marianne Khoury, the producer of Youssef Chahine, and her associates own the rights, they know me, they like my work, and they really supported us with this project. She made the images available. I also hope that this has helped bring back certain movies and certain types of movies. Next year will be the 100th anniversary of Youssef Chahine’s birth. I think his films will be re-released in theaters, but I also hope that my film will help bring back people’s desire to discover these kinds of films.
What opportunities does Cairo Film Festival offer?
Cairo is a festival that attracts a large audience from the general public. El Gouna has a high percentage of industry experts. Cairo attracts spectators from all walks of life. They are interested in discovering movies, but they don’t necessarily have access to them otherwise. That’s very important. For example, my family, my Egyptian family, has come to see this movie. So screening this film in Cairo is a great achievement.
