WHOSE COUNTRY?

BALAD MEEN?

By Mohamed SIAM

KARLOVY VARY INT'L FILM FESTIVAL - as FEST

Biography - Completed 2016

In Whose Country?, a Cairo-based filmmaker recounts his interaction with a group of plainclothes policemen and grapples with issues of authority, morality and the memory of his father, a former criminal investigator.

Festivals
& Awards

Hot Docs 2016
Command & Control
    • Year of production
    • 2016
    • Genres
    • Biography, Documentary
    • Countries
    • EGYPT, USA
    • Languages
    • ENGLISH, ARABIC
    • Budget
    • 0.3 - 0.6 M$
    • Duration
    • 58 mn
    • Director(s)
    • Mohamed SIAM
    • Writer(s)
    • Talal AL-MUHANNA, Georgina VAN WELIE
    • Producer(s)
    • Talal AL-MUHANNA (Linked Productions), Bruni BURRES (Linked Productions), Mohamed SIAM (ArtKhana), Sally Jo FIFER (ITVS), Christoph JORG (Pumpernickel Films)
    • Synopsis
    • Spanning the period from the outbreak of the Egyptian revolution in 2011 until the return of the military regime three years later, Whose Country? is a first-person account of one Cairo-based filmmaker’s interactions with a group of plainclothes policemen - the kind of security personnel who had become notorious in Egypt for widespread corruption and abuses of civilians - main causes for the January 25 uprising. Through verité footage and in one-on-one interviews, the policemen reveal the ways in which the security forces abused their role in society. At the same time, the filmmaker grapples with issues of guilt and morality and the memory of his father, a former criminal investigator.