24/05/2025 - CANNES 2025: The Egyptian filmmaker talked to us about the origins of his debut feature, centred on an African migrant in Cairo

(© 2025 Fabrizio de Gennaro for Cineuropa - fadege.it, @fadege.it)

Egyptian director Morad Mostafa presents his first feature at this year's Cannes Film Festival, in the Un Certain Regard section: Aisha Can't Fly Away [+see also:
film review
interview: Morad Mostafa
film profile] tells of the everyday struggles of a young Sudanese migrant living in Cairo and working as a caregiver. We talked to the director abut his inspiration for the story and his artistic choices.

Cineuropa: What was your motivation to tell the story of this young Sudanese woman in Cairo?
Morad Mostafa: I began thinking of the story through an encounter in a public bus in Cairo. Beside me was an African migrant girl, she was sleeping deeply. Then suddenly she woke up screaming and crying and she scared all the passengers in the bus. When the bus stopped, she left immediately. This moment was stuck in my head for a long time and from this moment, I started to think about this character in the film, about her background, her nightmares, her dreams, her life in Cairo, because Cairo is a very harsh city on its people. I started to think about that and I feel very bad for the newcomers or the migrants. On the other hand, I lived in a neighbourhood called Ain Shams, and this neighbourhood is a very unique place. It's a mix of African migrants and Egyptian people, there are gangs, everything is there. So I attached the story of the film with this place. I asked myself why, in Egyptian cinema, we don't have any films about non-Egyptians characters. In Egyptian cinema, they are always represented as secondary characters, in the background, and we don't have stories about them. So I wanted to show them as heroes, and in a strong way, not just as victims.  

Why do you think there are no stories like this in Egypt? 
Actually, I don't know. The topic of talking about another community inside your own community is there in American films, in European films. It's normal in the world, but not in Egyptian cinema, so far. This was my big motivation to make this film, to be the first film to tell this story. And I started doing this with with my previous two shorts, already. This first feature film functions like a trilogy with them, to complete this work, to complete what I need to say about this topic.

How did you find your actors and especially the actress playing Aisha? 
With every film I did, it was hard to find non-professional actors. I believe there is a freshness to non-professional actors. For the film, it took three months to find Buliana Simon, who plays Aisha. She has different things that made her perfect for the role. She's kind and she's strong. She's an angel and also has evil sides – there is everything inside her. It was very hard to find all these different things in one face. We did many rehearsals, and she was amazing. As for the rest of the cast, most of the actors in the film are non-professional actors. 

Why did you make Aisha a caregiver?
This job made it possible for the character to move around. She goes from house to house to discover Egyptian society. And to discover her journey and to discover her struggle, this job was very important for me and also my co-writer Sawsan Yusuf. Sawsan works in a social institution, where he is involved with the African migrant community and especially women. He is very close to the stories and the processes concerned. Moreover, Buliana herself, who came to Cairo at the age of five and is now a model, worked as a caregiver for a long time, so she's very close to the character. We talked a lot about this job. And I took many things from her real life for the story. 

The film is very physical. She's a caregiver, moving bodies around a lot. She has her skin problem, men abuse her, there is violence between gangsters. You depict a violent society. 
Of course there is violence. Not only in Egypt; it's everywhere. The film is more than just a portrait of her. I wanted to put something unique to this portrayal, to go further, for it to be more than just the story of African migrants somewhere. I needed this violence to say this character can defend herself, that she is not just a victim. 

You mix genres a little – you have a few horror elements and a big thriller aspect, of course. Do you like this mixture? How close are you to genre? 
When I started to love cinema and watch films, I began to love this kind of genre films. I love Jacques Audiard's films, the Dardenne's, I love Julia Ducournau's films. This is the kind of the cinema I love, so I wanted to make something close to me, a cinema I love. On the other hand, I wanted to put this migration story into something unique, inside the frame of magical realism. The film is not just a social drama, it's a bit of horror, a bit of action and thriller.