Films you must see if you’re in Cairo this month

November is an exciting month for Cairene cinephiles. Two highly anticipated festivals have movie watchers on the edge of their seats, and there’s a couple of good films playing in commercial cinemas too. Many of the great directors featured have never shown movies on Cairo’s big screens before, making this particular month exceptional.

Cairo International Film Festival (CIFF) is screening recent films by influential directors such as Jean-Luc Godard, David Cronenberg and Alain Resnais, while much-acclaimed Turkish-German director Fatih Akin's The Cut (2014), about the Armenian genocide, showed to a packed house last night. In addition, three long-awaited features by Egyptian directors will have their Cairo premieres: The Gate of Departure by Kareem Hanafy, Decor by Ahmed Abdalla, and El Ott by Ibrahim El Batout. The Panorama of European Film festival has a line-up that includes heavyweight directors Bela Tarr, Wim Wenders and Nuri Ceylan.

CIFF has just started. You can check the full line-up here. The program is packed with a number of impressive films, but the movies below made my not-to-miss checklist.

Adieu au language, Jean-Luc Godard (2014) Sunday 16 November at 2pm – El Hanager Cinema (the schedule says the film is "passes only," but this may change) Godard, being the radical (some may disagree with the use of “radical”) filmmaker he is, decided to experiment with 3D. A major director of the French New Wave (with Breathless and Contempt in the early 1960s, for example), he will turn 84 this December and has been making film essays that continue to shift the medium. Audiences react to his movies with love or hate, but the director’s impact on film is indisputable. Nominated for the Palme d’Or at Cannes, the film won the Palme Dog and the Jury Prize.

Silvered Water, Syria Self-Portrait, Ossama Mohammed and Wiam Simav Bedirxan (2014) Friday 14 November at 2pm – Main Hall Silvered Water documents the atrocities of the Syrian civil war through the phones of citizens. Mohammed believes that some of the film’s footage, which is a combination of found online films, footage shot by his collaborator Simav in Homs and his own footage made in Paris, is shot by the regime’s security force members. The feature-length documentary showed at Cannes this year (out of competition) and received a great deal of acclaim for its combination of real footage and imaginary, dreamy scenes.

Maps to the Stars, David Cronenberg (2014) Thursday, 13 November at 8pm – Main Hall Cronenberg is the director of the controversial dystopian punk sci-fi films The Fly and Naked Lunch, but Maps to the Stars is not from that genre. It’s a portrait of a family seeking celebrity in Hollywood’s hostile environment. The film stars Julianne Moore in a role for which she won the Best Actress Award at Cannes this year, which, presumably, will get her on the Academy Awards shortlist.

Life of Riley, Alain Resnais (2014) Tuesday 11 November at 8pm – El Hanager Theater This was Resnais’ last movie before he passed away on March 1. Resnais had been making movies since 1936, and he’s well known for his masterpiece, Hiroshima, mon amour screened at last year’s Panorama of European Film. Life of Riley won this year’s Berlin’s Alfred Bauer Award and the FIPRESCI Prize. An adaptation of an English play that carries the same name, Life of Riley the film tells the story of three couples who know that their friend, George, is dying. George’s last wish comes true as they all embark on a trip together.

Timbuktu, Abderrahmane Sissako (2014) Tuesday 18 November at 12pm – Small Hall Sissako, one of the few sub-Saharan African filmmakers who has international acclaim, plays on themes of displacement and globalization in his films. Timbuktu, his latest film, throws light on the occupation of Mali’s Timbuktu by militant Islamic rebels. The film was nominated for the Cannes Palme d’Or and won the François Chalais Award and the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury.

The 7th Panorama will take place from November 19 to 29 at Galaxy Cinema (Manial) and Cinema Zawya (Downtown). The schedule has not yet been announced, but their Facebook page has current information. Especially thrilling in this year’s Panorama is Nuri Ceylan’s eagerly anticipated Winter Sleep.

Winter Sleep, Nuri Bilge Ceylan (2014) I predict that the follow-up to leading Turkish director Ceylan’s 2011 impressive hit Once Upon a Time in Anatolia will be a masterpiece, and the Cannes jury seemed to agree, as it won the Palme d’Or. The plot revolves around a former actor, his wife and his sister who take shelter in their hotel as winter falls.    

The Turin Horse, Béla Tarr and Ágnes Hranitzky (2011) Tarr, along with Agnes Hracitzky, his partner for over 20 years, adds another masterpiece to his filmography. He says it’s his last. The Turin Horse, about a farmer facing the immanent death of his horse, won the Silver Berlin Bear and the FIPRESCI Prize of the 2011 Berlinale. Tarr is a leading figure of alternative cinema, and it’s an honor to watch one of his films on the big screen.

The Salt of the Earth, Juliano Ribeiro Salgado and Wim Wenders (2014) This documentary focuses on the life of Sebastião Salgado, considered by many to be one of the most important photographers alive. With Wenders behind the camera, this film surely deserves its reputation. It won the special jury prize from Cannes’ Un Certain Regard, and received a special mention from its Ecumenical Jury. The 2014 Panorama is also hosting a mini Wenders retrospective with the documentary Buena Vista Social Club (1999), Oscar nominated for best documentary, and his masterpiece Paris, Texas, winner of the Palme d’Or in 1984.

Ida, Pawel Pawlikowski (2013) Ida was a big sensation in 2013, not only due to its subject matter, touching on the Holocaust and German occupation of Poland, but also to Pawlikowski’s astonishing visual style. Anna, the main character, is about to take her vows as a nun, but first she has to see Wanda, her only relative left alive. Together, they discover their tragic family history. Pawlikowski started his career in the UK, and Ida is his first movie shot in his native country. It earned him the London Film Festival’s Best Film prize.

The Hunt, Thomas Vinterberg (2012) In 2012 at Cannes, The Hunt was nominated for the Palme d’Or, won the Best Actor award for Mads Mikkelsen, and the Ecumenical Jury prize. The Nordic film then gained more international attention with its nomination for the Golden Globes and Academy Awards in 2014. It tells the story of a lonely teacher who fights for custody of his son, but his life is turned upside down by whimsical lie by a little girl. The Hunt was a serious contender for the Academy’s Best Foreign Language Film until the heavyweight Italian eye-candy The Great Beauty took it instead.

Panorama is also screening Francois Truffaut’s The 400 Blows, a monumental 1959 film. It will be the second French New Wave film shown on Cairo’s big screen, after Godard’s above-mentioned Goodbye to Language.

Other than these two festivals with their powerful line-ups, Cairo’s commercial theaters are currently showing a few commercial releases that also make my list.

Gone Girl, David Fincher (2014) Gone Girl is the latest by Fincher (Fight Club, Seven and The Social Network), who is also the executive producer of the 2013 Netflix series House of Cards. Fincher is a master storyteller whose style has a mesmerizing effect on audiences. Like Fight Club, Gone Girl is based on an adaptation from a novel. Starring Ben Affleck and Rosamund Pike, the movie has already stirred up controversy through the portrayal of a complex female antagonist.

Two Days One Night, Jean-Pierre Dardenne and Luc Dardenne (2014) This feature film is the latest from the Dardenne brothers. Known for their straightforward plots, the siblings offer another simple story, this time about a young mother on a quest to convince her co-workers to give up their bonuses so she can keep her job. A typical art-house movie, it’s screening at Zawya in downtown.

Interstellar, Christopher Nolan (2014) Nolan is well known for his dystopian sci-fi blockbusters (Memento, Inception and The Dark Knight). Interstellar is probably the most ambitious in his oeuvre. As it’s shot in 70mm, I recommended watching it in IMAX projection. The large-scale production has been met with mixed reviews, but two of the world’s leading directors, Quentin Tarantino and Paul Thomas Anderson, have said it’s a must-see.