Egyptian director, writer and producer, born in 1978 in Cairo, he graduated from the Faculty of Applied Arts in 2001 and started his life as a textile engineer. In 2002, he pursued another career by joining the High Cinema Institute in Cairo to study filmmaking and graduated in 2007 and became a teacher there from 2008 until today.Sherif El Bendary has directed a number of short films and documentaries that have been screened in many festivals around the world. His first short film Rise and Shine was produced by the National Film Center (Egypt) in 2006, the film was selected in many international festivals and won several awards including the Tribeca film festival in 2007.In 2011, he directed a feature documentary On the road to Downtown, and among 9 other directors, he participated with the segment "Curfew" in the feature film 18 days (Official Selection Cannes 2011). El Bendary won the Robert Bosch Film Prize at the Berlinale Campus Talent 2014 for his short film Dry hot summer - an Egyptian-German co-production - the film premiered at Clermont Ferrand ISFF 2016, and was subsequently screened at numerous festivals around the world and won a number of awards. In 2017, El Bendary released his first feature film Ali, the Goat and Ibrahim, an Emirati-French co-production, which won the Best Actor Award at the Dubai IFF and was released in Egypt, France and many other countries in the same year. Sherif El Bendary had a television series, The Brotherhood II, written by screenwriter Wahid Hamed, a major historical production with political dimensions that caused controversy at the time. El Bendary has participated as a jury member in several film festivals, including the Cairo International Film Festival, the El Gouna Film Festival and the Egyptian National Film Festival. Recently, Sherif Elbendary founded Africa Films, a film production company primarily focused on short and feature films for promising and aspiring first and second time filmmakers, and will also produce his second feature film Spray.

SprayThe life of Aida, a married woman and mother, takes a sudden turn when a stranger tags the word "whore" on her building. This incident turns Aida's life into a living hell.

Morad, an Egyptian filmmaker, was born in Cairo. He has worked as an assistant director in several independent films; he collaborated as an executive director on the feature film "Souad" - official selection at the Cannes Film Festival 2020 and at the Berlinale. He wrote and directed two short films "Henet Ward" and "What we don't know about Mariam"; both had their world premiere in Clermont-Ferrand and were selected in other major festivals (BFI London - Palm Springs - Busan - Thessaloniki - Stockholm - Karlovy Vary - FIFF Namur - Cinemed Montpellier - Shanghai - Durban - EL Gouna - Cairo) and won more than 30 international awards.

Aisha, a Somali caregiver living in Egypt, is lost between her dreams and reality when routine, the pressure of a dreary job and a loveless relationship lead her to a dead end.

Samir Mohamed worked as a film editor for over 12 years before becoming a producer. In 2007, Mohamed Samir founded his own production company, DayDream Art Production, with the aim of supporting the independent film movement.He quickly became one of the most active producers in Egypt, having participated in many international film markets such as Dubai Film Connection, and the Berlinale Talent Campus. In 2014, the CNC selected him as a promising producer to participate in the Cannes Film Festival Producers Network.In 2014, he was appointed by Mr. Samir Farid to become the artistic director of the A-rated Cairo International Film Festival for its 36th edition.He has produced several short films for independent Egyptian filmmakers in addition to his feature film projects such as Factory Girl, a feature film by the renowned director Mohamed Khan.Today, Samir mainly focuses on writing and directing his own films.

From the top of her 70s and through three daily meals (breakfast, lunch and dinner) Oum Tamer invariably manages to bewitch her 45-year-old son, Tamer, and convince him to continue living with her. She has always tried to avoid any effort or responsibility for him. Tamer is the only male figure in her life; so far she has managed to keep him away from any other woman. The announcement of an incurable disease makes her realize that treating her son like a prince has made him useless and unable to survive without her. In a vicious race against death, she must defy her possessive love for her son, find the perfect woman who will accept Tamer as he is, reincarnate as his future wife to ensure his survival, and, most importantly, suppress her sudden urge to break free from the clutches of her mother who threatens the plans she is scheming for him.

Cinzia Bomoll is an Italian director and screenwriter. She grew up in Italy and graduated in Italian literature from the University of Bologna. She studied screenwriting at RAI (Italian Radio and Television) and creative writing at the Holden School in Turin and at Mediaset. She has been directing short and feature films since 1997. Her first film was made in 2007, Rahil's secret, and she has directed for several Italian television companies including RAI, Mediaset and La7, and has worked as an assistant director on the DVD version of the musical Notre-Dame de Paris, as well as on several music videos and a documentary on the punk band Cut. Between 2004 and 2008, Cinzia wrote a novel.Cinzia directed her second feature film in 2010: a musical produced by Rai Cinema and entitled Balla con noi - Let's Dance which was released in Italian theaters in May 2011 and distributed in South America, Spain, China, South Korea and the Philippines.

Aicha is an Egyptian teenager who lives in a small fishing village in southern Italy. She wants to overcome her limitations and fears, especially those of water. How can she do this? By participating in a traditional diving competition that marks the passage from adolescence to adulthood. But the world around her, still too backward and sexist, is not ready to face her courage.

Denise Tantucci was born in 1997 in a seaside town near Ancona.She attended drama school between the ages of 10 and 15, moved to Rome to study at a prestigious drama school, and began a career in television.She has acted in some of Italy's most popular television series, such as Un medico in famiglia(2014), Braccialetti rossi (2015-16) and Sirene (2017). Meanwhile, she published the award-winning poetry collection Fantasticherie e congetture and wrote and directed the play Doppio legame (2014). She has acted in several short films and, shortly after, she got the lead role in the Italian independent film Darkness, awarded for Best Photography at the Rome Film Festival and screened at the Tallinn Film Festival.She is one of the protagonists of the upcoming film Tre piani by Nanni Moretti, winner of the Palme d'or at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival.

Aicha is an Egyptian teenager who lives in a small fishing village in southern Italy. She wants to overcome her limits and fears, especially those of water. How can she do this? By participating in a traditional diving competition that marks the passage from adolescence to adulthood. But the world around her, still too backward and sexist, is not ready to face her courage.

Erenik studied at the Tirana Academy of Arts where he earned a master's degree in film directing. His graduation film was Seed Money, a short film written by Jim Uhls (Fight Club). He participated in the Sarajevo Talent Campus as a screenwriter, where he developed the short film Reverse which was produced a year later by the Sarajevo Film City. Reverse received awards for best film at ISFF Drama and the Cinematic Achievement award at ISFF Thessaloniki. In 2013, he wrote and directed the short film Alphonso which was screened at festivals such as the Vancouver International Film Festival and ISFF Brussels, among others. His next short film Bon Appétit was nominated for the Méliès D'Argent at the Brussels International Fantastic Film Festival, selected at aapsalu, Dokufest, Lund and many others.His latest short film, The Van, was in official competition at the Cannes Film Festival and many other festivals such as the Melbourne International Film Festival, Sarajevo Film Festival and is currently being screened at festivals around the world. His films portray the inner struggles of characters in the face of the socio-political space they inhabit, ultimately leading to disturbing decisions that define them as comic, tragic or grotesque portraits of society. Erenik currently lives and works in Tirana, Albania.

AFTER DARK, begins as a love story between Anna and Tom set in Tirana. But nothing is so simple: the country is facing abusive expropriations and Tom is confronted with Anna's true nature - a vampire.

Born in Bordeaux, Nabil Merrouch spent the rest of his youth in Casablanca and in 2009 joined the Conservatoire Libre du Cinéma Français and then the Université Paris-Est for a degree in film studies. In 2012, he directed his first feature documentary "Baguette de plomb" about the bread riots of June 1981. He created TifawFilms in 2018 with Rim Mejdi and the same year he directed his first short fiction film "Jayeen" selected in Paris at the festival "Les nuits MED" and at the Arab film festival in Casablanca. His short film "High Temperature" received a grant from the Scam and his first feature film in development "Those who go to heaven" is received in the program Méditalents 2020. He produced a short film by Rim Mejdi and is working with her on her first feature film "Plum season". He is co-creator of Saaed Meetings, a meeting platform for emerging Moroccan and Arab filmmakers.

A worker dies after falling from the top of a building. With no relatives, his remains are left to the cemetery administration who then relegate them to the medical school. On his way to Heaven, his file is blocked because he does not have a burial certificate. He is sent back to earth as the undead to complete his burial procedures.

Born in 1980 in Montpellier, I grew up in a small village in the back country. This childhood and adolescence in the heart of the land, under the sun, have deeply marked my imagination.At 18, I went to study at the Beaux-Arts of Montpellier and then at the Villa Arson in Nice. I practiced painting, photography and finally video. At the Beaux-Arts, I started to write my first stories, short stories that I then used as a scenario. I flirted then with narration and staging. After a year of wandering between Lyon, Burkina Faso and Berlin, I went to Le Fresnoy. In 2006, I found myself in Paris, in this bucolic Cité des Arts of Montmartre and I was still struggling to find my place between art and cinema. Over the years, my path has allowed me to experiment with different forms of storytelling, to explore the materials of image and sound, as well as several approaches to editing (video, multi-screen installations, short films). In parallel to these experiments, I have collaborated in choreographic, theatrical and musical multidisciplinary creations and thus elaborate video installations intended for the stage. And then there was this triggering film, L'ignorance invincible, produced by the G.R.E.C. My personal work has evolved towards a more narrative cinema, without denying its origins, but by feeding on them. I had chosen cinema. Since 2009, produced by Shellac and Thomas Ordonneau, I have directed 4 short films on youth and its emotions, films of gangs and solitude where stories of friendship and love are told to portray a youth conscious of itself, not without humor, irony and romanticism. Each film found its own form, its own band, its own heroes and heroines, and step by step I got closer to the actors and (re)wrote the scripts with them. My films have been presented in France and abroad (Pantin, Aix-en-Provence, Brive, Nice, Paris, Vendôme, Vila do Conde, Geneva, Rotterdam, Clermont-Ferrand, Drama, Thessaloniki). At the same time, I lead numerous film workshops with teenagers and young adults. Each workshop is for me a way to be in contact with young people who could populate my stories, to invite them to write, to act, to film, to talk about themselves, their feelings, their relationships with others, with the world. I also conduct workshops in Art School, Drama School, or with the G.R.E.C. Dying young is my first feature film. The author Emmanuelle Bayamack-Tam accompanied me in the writing and development of the film.

1995. Dorothée, 15 years old, disdains earthly foods and puts her body to the test in a high-level practice of gymnastics. She is wiry, determined and arrogant. Born in a fat family, Dorothée has always felt different from her family and has chosen another life. In search of the absolute and perfection, she trains until exhaustion with her coach Gérald, braving pain and danger. Dorothée is not afraid of anything and is ready to do anything to fly. One weekend back in the village, she meets her childhood friend Josephine. She meets an androgynous boy, Dylan, best friend of Joséphine's boyfriend, Mathieu. As they are about to go to a party in the middle of nowhere, Dorothée decides to go with them so as not to die stupid. That night, in this strange party where various bodies dance with singularity on a repetitive electronic music, Dylan looks at Dorothée and smiles at her. This smile and this other world awake his being to a buried need of sensuality and fusion, to another movement. By abandoning herself to dance and love, Dorothée frees her body and finally experiences the ecstasy so coveted.

Coralie Prosper is a French artist juggling writing, directing and acting.Graduating from the Ecole Supérieure de Réalisation Audiovisuelle de Nice in 2011, she directed Mathi(eu ), a short film that won awards and was broadcast internationally. In 2016, she completed her studies at East 15 Acting School in England graduating with distinction with a Master of Fine Arts in Theatre Directing and began playing a child soldier with the Elizabeth Czerczuk Company.She now devotes her time to her theater and film company, Sakura no Ki no Shita (Under the Cherry Tree in Japanese), which she directs with her partner, Rei Watanabe Prosper.

Tom, in his thirties, lives in France with his Japanese wife, Sakura, and their four-year-old son, Genki. The little family leads an ordinary and fulfilling existence. But their equilibrium explodes during a trip to Japan when Sakura dies in a tragic accident. From that moment on, the traditional Japanese family considers it their duty to raise Genki in Japan. An inconceivable decision for Tom, determined to fight to remain the mother of her child.

Of Moroccan father and French mother, Younes Bouab was born on April 29, 1979 in Salé. He discovered theater during his schooling at Descartes High School in Rabat.After his baccalaureate, he studied philosophy in Paris, then in Germany for a year of exchange and finally at the Sorbonne, from which he graduated with a Master 2 in philosophy on the work of Averroes. He returned to the stage during his last years in Paris, following an actor's training course at Studio Pygmalion.Back in Morocco, he worked as a scriptwriter before trying his luck successfully in front of the camera, on national productions.

Aziz, 22 years old, madly in love with Aisha, militates fiercely for justice, but will gradually come up against the reality of authoritarian power head-on, which will destroy his life.