Lagoonie Film Production (Shahinaz Elakkad), in association with Film Clinic Indie Distribution (Mohamed Hefzy), released the official poster of Feathers, by Egyptian director Omar El Zohairy. The film will participate within the International Critics' Week of Cannes Film Festival, where it will land its world premiere on Tuesday, July 13.
The film is a co-production between Egypt, France, Netherlands and Greece and it received support from numerous international institutions during its different phases of production.
Marking his feature debut, Omar El Zohairy co-wrote Feathers with Ahmed Amer. The film is co-produced by the two French producers Juliette Lepoutre and Pierre Menahem (Still Moving), along with Lagoonie Film Production (Shahinaz Elakkad); Mohamed Hefzy (Film Clinic, Egypt); Derk-Jan Warrink and Koji Nelissen (Kepler Film, Netherlands) and Giorgos Karnavas, Konstantinos Kontovrakis (Heretic, Greece) and Verona Meier. Film Clinic Indie Distribution (FCID) handles the film’s distribution across the Arab world.
The film was developed with the support of the Baumi Script Development Award, Torino Film Lab and Cinéfondation, and received a Post-production Award at the Atlas Workshop of the Marrakech International Film Festival.
Shot by Kamal Samy and edited by Kamal Saqr, Feathers stars Domiana Nassar and Sami Bassuiny. The film follows a passive mother who’s stuck in her daily routine taking care of her house and children. Her life turns upside down when a magician, at her four-year-old son’s birthday party, turns by mistake her authoritarian husband into a chicken. As she tries to survive her new life alone without her husband, the weak passive mother‘s character will soon change into a new one.
Omar El Zohairy studied at the Cairo Cinema Institute and worked as an assistant director alongside some of Egypt’s most prominent directors, including Yousry Nasrallah and Youssef Chahine. His first short film Breathe Out won the Jury Special Mention Prize at the Dubai International Film Festival. His second short The Aftermath of The Inauguration of The Public Toilet at Kilometer 375 was the first Egyptian film to be selected for the Cannes Cinefondation at the Cannes Film Festival. The film Feathers marks El Zohairy’s first feature film.