18/04/2025 - Morad Mostafa’s debut feature follows the eponymous 26-year-old immigrant and caregiver navigating violent tensions in the Cairo neighbourhood of Ain Shams

After gaining a significant amount of traction in the later months of 2024, the debut feature by Cairo-born Egyptian filmmaker Morad Mostafa, Aisha Can’t Fly Away, is now set to world-premiere in the Un Certain Regard strand of the 78th Cannes Film Festival (13-24 May – see the news). Notably, the project will be the first Egyptian movie to screen in the section since Mohamed Diab’s Clash [+see also:
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film profile] served as the opening film of Un Certain Regard in 2016. Mostafa’s short film I Promise You Paradise won Cannes’ Rail d’Or in the 2023 Critics’ Week programme.

Branded as being in the style of a thriller, Aisha Can’t Fly Away follows the titular 26-year-old Sudanese immigrant, who is a caregiver living in the migrant-heavy Cairo neighbourhood of Ain Shams. As authorities look away from rising tensions between the different groups that live there, gangs begin to take control of the neighbourhood. One gang offers Aisha protection in exchange for a personal favour, forcing her to make hard decisions in order to navigate these complexities.

The cast is led by Buliana Simon as Aisha, Egyptian rapper Ziad Zaza, Emad Ghoniem and Mamdouh Saleh. The script was written by Mostafa and Sawsan Yusuf, the latter of whom also produced the feature and co-wrote Mostafa’s Cannes short I Promise You Paradise. The crew includes cinematographer Mostafa El Kashef (who also lensed The Village Next to Paradise [+see also:
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Aisha Can’t Fly Away has scooped a massive slew of awards during its journey. Among these instances, the project walked away with the Red Sea Souk Production Award for an Arab Lodge project at the Red Sea Film Festival in late 2022. In 2024, it also snagged the top prize in Venice’s Final Cut programme alongside one of the major post-production awards at Marrakech’s Atlas Workshops. The film received additional funding and support from the Doha Film Institute, the AFAC Film Fund, Culture Resource (Al Mawred Al Thaqafy), Cinéfondation, La Fabrique Cinema of Cannes, Cinemed Montpellier, Locarno Academy, El Gouna Film Festival and others.

Aisha Can’t Fly Away is a production involving Egypt (Bonanza Films, Film Clinic, MAD Solutions, Lagoonie Film Production and AA Films), France (Dulac Productions), Germany, Tunisia (Nomadis Images), Saudi Arabia (Cinewaves), Qatar and Sudan (Station Films).