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Interweaving the stories of four Egyptian women from diverse backgrounds and generations, this film offers a window into the country's complex gender relations. Powerful, intimate and politically explosive, In the Shadow of a Man forms an impressive social portrait of life both before and after the revolution.
In the wake of the Egyptian revolution, four women speak of their fight for the future and what it means to be a woman in Egypt. Although Wafaa, Suzanne, Shahinda and Badreya are each from vastly different backgrounds and generations they are deeply connected by the current changes in Egypt, both before and after the revolution, as well as their quest for self-determination.
Taking stories and images from their everyday lives as she weaves through their worlds, director Hanan Abdalla looks at the ‘little’ things that inform the existence of these four women – their thoughts, their experience of marriage and their wedding night, divorce, abuse, work and migration – drawing them together to form a powerful, intimate and politically explosive portrait.
Director Hanan Abdalla will join us via Skype for a post-screening Q&A. Hanan Abdalla Born in London in 1988, she studied politics and philosophy at Oxford University. After graduating in 2010 she attended film courses at the National Film and Tele vision School, the Frontline Club and the Documentary Filmmakers Group. She has been in Egypt since 2011 where she has been documenting and participating in the ongoing revolution. In the Shadow of a Man is her first feature length documentary.