Akhnaton Films announced today that Sherif Sadek’s award-winning documentary, “From Queens to Cairo” (2012) will have a screening on Friday, June 7, in the Egyptian Works program at the 16th annual Ismailia International Film Festival. The festival is in Ismailia, Egypt, from June 4 through June 9.
Launched in 1988, the Ismailia festival is one of the major film festivals in the Arab world, and is he exclusively dedicated to documentaries and shorts. The festival’s global appeal is a magnet for filmmakers around the world for screening their documentaries and shorts amidst an audience and industry that is heavily invested in these genres. Learn more about the festival at www.ismailiafilmfest.com.
Nominations and Awards:
• Nominated as Best Director of a Short Documentary for “From Queens to Cairo” at the Madrid International Film Festival, July 1 – 6, 2013.
•Winner of Best Feature Documentary at the Queens World Film Festival, NY, held in March 2013.
• Official Selection at the Rainier Independent Film Festival, Mount Rainier, WA, May 10-12, 2013.
• Featured on Indiewire as Project of the Day.
This informative and insightful documentary follows Egyptian-American filmmaker Sherif Sadek as he returns to his native Cairo with his family one year after the start of the Egyptian Revolution. With tons of misinformation in the global media, Sadek is determined to see for himself how Egyptians will navigate the bumpy road to democracy after decades of authoritarianism. His journey takes him from famed Tahrir Square to the inside of taxi cabs to rallies and slums as he searches for perspectives from all walks of life. (www.imdb.com/title/tt2580398/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1)
Production
Sadek shot “From Queens to Cairo” with a Nikon D7000 HDSLR. He then used ASSIMILATE’s SCRATCH software to do the conforming and turned to Jason Crump at Metropolis Post for the color grading in SCRATCH. Sadek was able to do the finishing himself, using the SCRATCH Finishing software. Sadek notes, “I work with SCRATCH every day in a technical support role for ASSIMILATE, but to experience its ease-of-use and powerful tool set as a user, gave me even greater appreciation for the craft and creativity of post-production artists.”
Sherif Sadek, Akhnaton Films
As an American Egyptian, making this film is very personal to me. With the recent political events in Egypt, I wanted to experience history in the making and show the world the humanity, passion, and courage of the Egyptian, no matter their political beliefs. Fortunately, I’m able to use powerful software tools like SCRATCH to shape the story and preserve the realistic look of day-to-day events. www.akhnatonfilms.com
Viewer quotes
Don Cato, curator of the Queens World Film Festival 2013, gave high marks to Sadek’s documentary, stating, “What at first seemed ordinary, quickly turned to an unflinching drama, drawing a line between pyramids and poverty, Cairo and