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 New: Documentaries
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The Luck of Water
Directed by Ignacio Decerega, Cristóbal Jasso • Documentary • 2023 • 64 minutes
The Luck of Water profiles two rivers and a sacred saltwater lagoon system in the indigenous Mixtec, mestizo, and Afro-descendant communities in the Oaxaca’s coastal region in Mexico. For indigenous Mixtec communitie...
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The Sky Trembles and the Earth is Afr...
Directed by Ben Rivers • Drama • 2015 • 95 minutes
Please note not all of the dialogue is translated in this film, nor does it have English closed captions.
The Sky Trembles and the Earth is Afraid and the Two Eyes are Not Brothers is a labyrinthine and epic film that moves between documentary,...
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What Means Something
Directed by Ben Rivers • Documentary • With Rose Wylie • 2015 • 66 minutes
A portrait of the painter Rose Wylie. I met Rose quite a few years ago and we became good friends. I asked her if I could make a film about her and she agreed. The film, finally, is a meeting between two friends, made spo...
