Join us for a night of Egyptian Shorts, curated by Ahmed Shawky Hassan. Video art first became widespread in the early 1990s in Egypt, initiating a seismic break from the country’s rich cinematographic tradition. The genre offered a space to break free from the constraints of standard narrative, visual dictation, and entrenched definitions of image and audio relations.

For some, video art was the logical extension of a history of independent Egyptian cinema; for which visual footage was the touchstone for experimental film production. For others, it proved to be blasphemous; an uncanny anomaly which could not be placed or standardized in any particular genre or setting. This evening offers a selection of art film shorts from the past decade.

Programme of films

Hosam El Sawah – Kekh (2007)
Mohammed Shawky Hassan – And on a Different Note (2015)
Maha Maamoun – Dear Animal (2016)
Kaya Beykalam – Excursions in the Dark (2011)
Ahmed Nagy – Holy Zero (2010)

Ahmed Shawky Hassan is an artist and writer, born in 1989 in Ismailia, Egypt. He completed his university studies at Faculty of Art Education at Helwan’s University in 2011 and is currently the co-director of MHWLN, a research project on archiving contemporary arts. He lives and works in Cairo.