The Virgin, the Copts and Me
Icarus Films
•
1h 27m
Directed by Namir Abel Messeeh • Documentary • 2011 • 85 minutes
A non-believer born in Egypt and raised in France by his Copt parents, filmmaker Namir Abdel Messeeh has a complicated relationship with his ethnoreligious heritage. THE VIRGIN, THE COPTS AND ME is playful and warm personal account of his attempt to better understand his roots while making his first feature film.
After watching a video said to depict an appearance of the Virgin Mary in the region of his birthplace, Abdel Messeeh decides to head to Egypt to explore the claims of Marian apparitions that have proliferated in the country since the famous apparitions in Zeitoun in the late 1960s. He secures a producer, as well as his mother Siham's blessing-under the condition that he not record her family.
Arriving in Cairo without a plan, Abdel Messeeh finds that his investigation will be more difficult than anticipated. Clerics refuse to speak with him in detail unless authorized by church authorities, and the tension between Muslims and Copts, which lies at the heart of the filmmaker's project, is so acute that most people would rather not speak about it. Unafraid to depict his missteps, Abdel Messeeh appears in these sections as a comedically inept first-time filmmaker even as the polished onscreen result belies that conclusion. THE VIRGIN, THE COPTS AND ME turns Messeeh's personal journey into an intimate, revealing look at a marginalized Middle Eastern community.
"A disarmingly honest, thoroughly winning personal portrait of family and heritage." -Variety
Up Next in Icarus Films
-
We All Fall Down
Directed by Gary Gasgarth • Documentary • 2009 • 65 minutes
This timely and informative documentary chronicles the history of America's mortgage finance system, from its origins in the 1930s, when the federal government first made available long-term, fixed-rate loans to new American homeowners,...
-
What If Marx Was Right?
Directed by Ilan Ziv • Documentary • 2014 • 53 minutes
'Paradoxically, we can't really learn that much about socialism or communism or the future from Marx. We can learn a great deal about how capital works.' - Marx historian David Harvey
When the communist systems of the 20th century crumbled...
-
What's For Dinner?
Directed by Jian Yi • Documentary • 2013 • 29 minutes
Meat is now central to billions of people's daily meals. The environmental, climate, public health, ethical, and human impacts are enormous and remain largely undocumented. 'What's For Dinner?' explores this terrain in fast-globalizing China ...