Before She Forgets Heliopolis 2020

Directed by Valentin Noujaïm

My family have begun to forget their Egyptian roots and, on asking my grandmother Malo to recount the first part of her life in Cairo, I am confronted by the memories of an exiled Arabic woman, lost in a troubled sea of memories, soon to be erased by the passage of time. I start a tour to trace her steps and understand who she is, and therefore who we are. An Egypt appears where her past, my imaginings and the present Heliopolis mix together as night falls.