Nahla Zayed The Brink of Dreams landed its premiere within the official competition of the Critics’ Week at the Cannes Film Festival. The premiere was attended by the film’s cast and crew including directors Nada Riyadh and Ayman El Amir alongside the girls of Panorama El Barsha Troupe who performed a street art performance ahead of the beginning of the film. The film received a wide audience acclaim after its premiere.
It is worth mentioning that the girls’ elegant and unique looks grabbed the attention of the attendees. Nada Hossam is the stylist behind these looks, in collaboration with Mystic, La blanca, Cache, Indira, and Rana Ghazy Jewellery.
The Brink of Dreams marks the first Egyptian documentary film that secured a spot in the Cannes Film Festival’s Critics’ Week. Additionally, it is the sole documentary film competing in the Critics’ Week competition, being one of only seven films vying for the Grand Award for Best Film, the Jury Award, the Best Actor or Actress Award, the Best Screenplay Award, and the Distribution Award.
The events of The Brink of Dreams take place in a remote village in southern Egypt, in which a group of girls rebel by forming an all-female street theatre troupe. They dream of becoming actresses, dancers, and singers, challenging their families and villagers with their unexpected performances. Shot over four years, The Brink of Dreams follows them from childhood to womanhood, facing the most crucial choices of their lives.
The Brink of Dreams stars Panorama El Barsha troupe; Magda Masoud, Haidi Sameh, Monika Youssef, Marina Samir, Myriam Nassar, Lydia Haroun, and the founder of the troupe, Youstina Samir.
The film is directed by Nada Riyadh and Ayman El Amir, whose most recent work includes the short fiction Fakh (The Trap), which premiered at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival and received a special mention at the Cairo International Film Festival (CIFF) in the same year. Their feature-length documentary Happily Ever After premiered at the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam in 2016, one of the most important documentary film festivals around the world.
The Brink of Dreams is produced by Felucca Films and its crew including; line producer Mohamed Khaled, assistant directors Hamees El Balshy and Doha Hamdy, DOPs Dina El Zeneiny, Ahmed Ismael, and Ayman El Amir, sound recording by Mostafa Shaaban, Sameh Nabil, Osama Goubail, and Shadwa Ali, music by Ahmad El Sawy, and editors Veronique Lagoarde-Segot, Ahmed Magdy Morsy, Ayman El Amir and Nada Riyadh. The PR in Egypt and the Middle East is handled by Carrots (Marwa El Sawy). Nada Hossam is the actresses’s stylist, in collaboration with Mystic, La blanca, Cache, Indira, and Rana Ghazy Jewellery.
