Directed by Claire Billet, Nadia Blétry • Documentary • With François Hollande, Maye Kabil, Ariane Lavrilleux, Ahmed Abdel Quddus • 2026 • 53 minutes
To an outsider, Egypt looks like a dynamic country reinventing itself. Under president Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, construction is booming, with dams, bridges, roads, and tourism mega-projects proliferating in the desert and along the Mediterranean coast.
But behind the flashy projects, Egypt is a country on the brink of collapse. Egypt is now the third most indebted country in the world, its economy largely dependent on income from the Suez Canal and tourism. And those mega-projects? They are propped up by support from the Gulf states, the IMF and the European Union — and ultimately will be sold off to foreign investors.
In EL-SISI: EGYPT'S NEW PHARAOH, the directors speak with regular Egyptians struggling to make ends meet, political dissidents, and social and economic experts, revealing a country where poverty abounds, criticism is not tolerated, and the military has infiltrated almost every sector of the economy. Is the land of the pyramids modernizing — or do Egypt’s changes represent just another pyramid scheme?
Up Next in March's Top 30 Films
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Rocco and His Brothers
Directed by Luchino Visconti • Drama • With Alain Delon, Renato Salvatori, Annie Girardot, Claudia Cardinale • 1960 • 179 minutes
Presented by Martin Scorsese and featuring an operatic score by Nino Rota, Rocco and His Brothers is a timeless story of modernity, class tension, and family drama sp...
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World War III (Houman Seyedi, w/ Mohs...
Directed by Houman Seyedi • Drama • With Mohsen Tanabandeh, Mahsa Hejazi • 2022 • 107 minutes
Winner of the Orizzonti Awards for Best Film and Actor at the Venice Film Festival 2022, director Houman Seyedi's mysterious thriller/drama focuses on an anonymous day laborer (Mohsen Tanabandeh) who is...
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Leila and the Wolves
Directed by Heiny Srour • Documentary • With Nabila Zeitouni, Rafik Ali Ahmad • 94 minutes
Drawing on the Arab heritage of the ‘Arabian Nights’, Leila and the Wolves combines fictional drama, archival footage, fantasy sequences, mosaic pattern, to refute the colonial and male dominated version o...
