By Simone Egarter and Marwa Morgan
The Egyptian short film “The Visit”, directed by Mohamed Karim, has been selected to be screened at the Los Angeles Lift-Off Film Festival.
“The Visit” tells the story of a tense father-son relationship. After the father gets terribly sick, the son pays him a visit to solve their old disputes but they continue to struggle with trust and love.
The international Lift-Off Film Festival is currently taking place in London, Liverpool, Los Angeles and Las Vegas. The festival committee is looking for more independent Arabic films to partake in a transatlantic-exchange, according to Lift-Off press release.
Mohamed Ben Karim Abdelwadoud is a young director who established his career between Egypt and the United States.
Karim joined the director training programme at the Prague Film School, and “The Visit” is his final graduation project. The film’s screenplay is a cooperation between him and a young Turkish script writer Yasemin Demirici.
“The Visit” tells a story of a son who visits his sick father in an attempt to fix their relationship “before it’s too late.” Over fifteen minutes, the film shows the struggle the two go through trying to trust each other again and admit their own mistakes.
Karim previously worked as an assistant to the well-known Egyptian director Youssry Nasrallah on his two films Ehky ya Shahrazad (Scheherazade, Tell Me a Story) and Geneinet Al-Asmak (The Aquarium). He also assisted the director Mariam Abou Ouf in her film Bibo w Besheer (Bibo and Beshir).
The international Lift-Off Film Festival is scheduled to take place between September 4th and September 6th. The program includes films from the United States, United Kingodm, France, Palestine among other countries.
Launched in 2010, the festival aims to offer an opportunity and exposure to filmmakers whose work “wouldn’t normally be picked up by the main stream film festivals.” The films are screened in international locations, where the audience selects the winners. The jury does an “Official Selection” from the highest scored films to be awarded the festival’s “special mentions”.
In a statement, the Prague Film School said: “We are really proud and happy that films of our students created within their studies are doing great in international film festivals.”
