Yousry Nasrallah's Brooks, Meadows and Lovely Faces (Al Ma’ wal Khodra wal Wajh El Hassan) will be screened at the Toronto International Film Festival, which runs between 8 and 18 September, marking the film its North American premiere.
In early August, the film was screened within the official competition of the 69th Locarno International Film Festival (Festival del Film Locarno) in Switzerland.
Egyptian director Yousry Nasrallah told Al-Ahram Arabic that he came up with the idea for his new film 21 years ago, around 1995, as he was working on his documentary film Sobyan Wa Banat.
The film, Nasrallah says, narrates the story of Egyptian actor Bassem Samra’s family, whose members work as wedding caterers.
Nasrallah, who saw that the countless particulars of this family's story could be employed in a film project, decided to collaborate with Samra and turn this real-life story into a film.
Nasrallah explained that the film focuses on the life of cooks from the countryside who work in wedding receptions. To do that, it tells the stories of three cooks, whose roles are played by Layla Elwi, Menna Shalabi and Bassem Samra.
The film seeks to reveal how this group’s members deal with one other, the sufferings they encounter at times, and the situations they experience during their presence in wedding receptions across different social classes.
The film was co-written by Ahmad Abdalla and Nasrallah, and produced by Ahmed El-Sobky.
The cast also comprises actors Ahmed Daoud and Mohamed El-Sharnouby.
Born in 1952, Yousry Nasrallah is a writer and director who began his career as assistant to renowned Egyptian filmmaker Youssef Chahine.
Today, Nasrallah is known for many films, including El Medina (1999), After the Battle (2012) and Genenet El Asmak (2008). Nasrallah also took part in the film 18 Days, which consists of 10 shorts that focus on the Egyptian revolution, each of which directed by a different filmmaker.
In Toronto, film Brooks, Meadows and Lovely Faces will be screened on three days: 9, 10 and 18 September.
