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Saqr wants to flee from the grubby Egyptian tanners’ district where he lives and works. His older sister Taheya wants to prevent this at all costs. She sabotages the blossoming romance between her brother and a medical student and also tries to thwart Saqr’s future plans as a boat refugee in Italy. Among the dried skins and punch-drunk mules, a shaman silently watches from his improvised throne. He is to help Taheya with an occult solution in this intriguing, skittish portrait of poverty in today’s Egypt. With phenomenal shots of the towering scaffolding of a glue factory, juxtaposed with moving scenes in which the everlasting love between brothers and sisters prevails.

Guest:
Dina Wahba graduated from the Faculty of Economics and Political Science, Cairo University. She is a Chevening scholar and completed her Master’s Degree (M.A.) in Gender Studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London. Her recently published thesis' topic is “Gendering the Egyptian Revolution”. Dina is currently pursuing her PhD at Freie Universität Berlin with a project on “Politics, Emotion and Affect within the Dynamics of Tahrir Square”. Dina is a women’s rights activist who worked with several local, regional and international organizations such as International Rescue Committee (IRC), UN Women, the League of Arab States and Women Living Under Muslim Laws (WLUML). She worked on a number of gender issues such as sexual and gender based violence, leadership, political participation and empowerment. Dina worked in several countries among them the United Kingdom, South Sudan, Egypt and most recently Germany.

Moderation:
Iskandar Abdalla (Freie Universität Berlin) is a PhD student at the Berlin Graduate School Muslim Cultures and Societies working on „Rendering Islam Liberal: Secularism, Sexulaity and Politics of Muslim Self-appropriation in Contemporary Germany.“ In his MA thesis in Islamic Sciences he dealt with the representation of Jews in Egyptian cinema. Abdalla was trained among others at Deutsche Welle, works as a guide at the Jewish Museum Berlin and as a film curator for the alfilm Festival Berlin.