‘Feathers’ Director Omar El Zohairy to Helm English-Language ‘Mammals’

Egyptian director Omar El Zohairy, whose absurdist social satire “Feathers” received the Cannes Critics’ Week prize in 2021 and went on to make a serious splash, is ready to helm “Mammals,” an English-language drama that might be a mirrored image on Western capitalism and household ties.

El Zohairy’s sophomore movie, which can characteristic actors from totally different international locations, is being co-written by the buzzed-about auteur with British Egyptian writer-director Mohamed Adeeb, who wrote the hit Egyptian TV sequence “Bimbo,” directed by Amr Salama.

“Mammals” is partly impressed by the biography of El Zohairy’s father, who died in 2016 in america, the place he was an immigrant dwelling below troublesome circumstances. Within the movie, a younger man visits his distant father in one of many world’s most lavish resorts. When he arrives there he discovers that, unbeknownst to him, his father has locked him right into a enterprise deal that he can not reject. The younger man rebels, but additionally begins to love his new life and finally loses his sanity. 

El Zohairy stated that at a micro degree, the center and backbone of the “Mammals” story is the daddy and son dynamic. Nevertheless it’s additionally about his rapport with capitalism.

“I at all times really feel responsible about having cash or being profitable. I hate poverty and I hate being rich too,” El Zohairy instructed Selection. “I undergo from capitalism however I cannot resist it. I cannot resist the thought of proudly owning a pleasant spacious dwelling or good chalet by the seaside.”

“On this movie I’m making an attempt to confront my fears in a hilarious, cinematic, poetic journey,” he famous.

“Mammals,” which begins in a Japanese fishing village the place dolphins are mysteriously dying (see the above temper artwork), is being lead-produced by France’s Juliette Lepoutre through her Nonetheless Transferring shingle, which additionally produced “Feathers.”

In 2021, El Zohairy grew to become the primary Egyptian director to win Cannes Critics’ Week prime prize with “Feathers,” which went on to attain a slew of different awards and ruffled feathers in Egypt, the place it was banned from taking part in in film theaters. He has labored as an assistant director alongside a few of Egypt’s most celebrated filmmakers, amongst them Youssef Chahine and Yousry Nasrallah. His quick movie “Breathe Out” (2011) had its premiere on the Dubai Movie Pageant, the place it received the Particular Jury Prize. His second quick, “The Aftermath of the Inauguration of the Public Rest room at Kilometer 375” (2014), was the primary Egyptian movie chosen for the Cannes’ Cinéfondation.