Yomeddine (2018)

Directed by: AB Shawky | 97 minutes | adventure, comedy, drama | Actors: Rady Gamal, Ahmed Abdelhafiz, Osama Abdallah, Mohamed Abdel Azim, Shahira Fahmy, Shehab Ibrahim

The Egyptian Beshay was brought to the leper colony as a child, where he still lives as an adult man in his fifties (his age is difficult to estimate partly due to the consequences of his illness). He married there and leads a fairly happy life. But when his wife – who was already ill – dies and he is visited by his mother-in-law – whom he has never seen before – something starts to gnaw at him. If his wife still has family, would his family still be alive? Beshay soon takes the bull by the horns and decides – against all the good advice of a couple of friends – to go in search of his family with his cart and donkey. And that for someone who has never set foot outside the colony independently… He is accompanied by the orphaned boy Obama, initially as a stowaway, later as an indispensable friend.

‘Yomeddine’ is Arabic for ‘day of judgment’ and this means that there will come a day when everyone will be seen as equal, and will be judged by the deeds one has done, not how one looks. Beshay has an optimistic character, but even a positive person like Beshay is touched by the way he is viewed and treated by outsiders. The very fact that he is in a colony with other leprosy patients is of course already entrenched in his very being: how can he feel part of Egyptian society, in this micro-economy, in which he earns money by walking around the local rubbish dump? to scavenge and sell things of value? People’s ignorance is one thing – women washing in a river – frightened of contamination remove their child from the water – while Beshay has not been contagious for years – but the cruelty of others, a nurse in a hospital or the police, is a second.

The two non-professional actors (Rady Gamal as Beshay and Ahmed Abdelhafiz as Obama) are not inferior to each other in purity and charisma and take this disarming feature film debut by the Egyptian-Austrian AB Shawky to a higher level. The friendship between the two is moving and works both ways: they can’t live without each other and when the inevitable separation comes, it’s as heartbreaking as it is exciting.

Shawky introduces us to different sides of Egyptian society, with a surprise on every street corner. ‘Yomeddine’ is a loving, humorous and human portrait of two people who have been rejected by everyone but each other. Although the story feels familiar, you will not soon forget the main characters.