Brink of Dreams, The (F/F)

Dirs. Nada Riyadh & Ayman El Amir | Egypt | France | 102 min | 2024

This intimately made film follows a crew of young street performers in Southern Egypt who are intent on challenging the harshly proscriptive gender roles imposed upon Egyptian women. With a minimum of props and costumes, the all-female troupe devise small plays that feature the audience – and their complicity in the oppression of women – as central players. In documenting these scenes, along with the performers’ personal lives, The Brink of Dream offers a heart-breaking critique of the position of women in Egyptian society – in a particularly haunting scene, the girls recite a litany of the often brutal comments directed at women who wish to become actors, singers, or simply independent women with their own lives. Beyond the specificity of its subject matter, the film provides a deeply empathetic portrayal of young womanhood and the ways in which the solidarity of women is opposed and disrupted by the demands of men.