Dry Hot Summers (Har Gaf Sayfan)
Ajyal Competition
Sherif Elbendary / Short Narrative / Egypt, Germany / 2015 / 31 min / Colour / DCP2K
In Arabic / English subtitles
Interests: Drama, Middle Eastern, Friendship
Qatar Premiere
Synopsis
A straightforward errand turns into a wild goose chase for a kind-hearted elderly man when he crosses paths with a nervous bride-to-be in a taxi cab. Though their routines are taking them down different paths, it seems destiny has brought them together to reconnect them to the joys of life. Director Sherif Elbendary captures the ambience of Cairo’s congested streets and charming hidden corners in a lovely tale of chance encounters and unexpected friendship in the sweltering heat of the city.
About the Directors
Egyptian filmmaker Sherif Elbendary lives and works in Cairo. He graduated from the High Institute of Cinema in Cairo in 2007. His short films, ‘Rise & Shine, (2006) and ‘At Day’s End’ (2008), appeared in numerous film festivals and won many awards. Sherif’s ‘Curfew’ was part of the omnibus film ‘18 Days’, which screened at the Festival de Cannes in 2011, and his ‘Dry Hot Summers’ won the Robert Bosch Film Prize in 2014, and was in competition at the Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival in 2016. He made his feature-length directorial debut with ‘Ali, the Goat and Ibrahim’ (2016) and is currently preparing his second feature, ‘2 Rooms and a Parlor’.
Credits
- Director
- Sherif Elbendary
- Screenwriter
- Nura El-Sheikh
- Producer
- Claudia Jubeh
- Editor
- Emad Maher
- Executive Producer
- Safei El Din Mahmoud, Red Star Films
- Co-Producer
- Hossam Elouan
- Cinematographer
- Victor Credi
- Sales Company
- Mec Film
- Production Company
- Subtype Productions
- Cast
- Mohamed Farid, Nahed Elsebai, Donia Maher, Mohamed Abd el Azim