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Heliopolis

AHMAD ABDALLA
Egypt, 2009, 96 minutes, Color, film's website

A wistful account of loss woven with the hope of possibility, this Egyptian ensemble piece is even set in a lost place: Cairo's Heliopolis neighborhood, once the city’s European quarter. In a series of overlapping stories, writer-director Ahmad Abdalla introduces an abundance of contrasting characters: There's a grad student whose research into the area's history leads him to an elderly shut-in who doesn't want the neighbors to know she's Jewish, a hotel desk clerk whose desire to live in France is so powerful that it prompts an animated reverie of Paris, a Christian doctor whose relatives want him to join them in Canada, an engaged couple who are looking for real estate and large appliances but find only unbearable traffic, and a young policeman whose post is successfully infiltrated by a stray puppy. Instead of drama, the film concentrates on a strong sense of character—human and geographic. —Mark Jenkins

In Arabic, French, and English with English subtitles

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