18 Days

This 2011 Egyptian film is made of ten short sections by ten different directors, all looking at the same subject: the eighteen days of the uprising. Some use events they lived through, some accounts they heard, some pure fiction. The sections do not resemble one another in form. One is a conversation in a single room, another a near-documentary record made in the square; the narrative produces no common conclusion and does not attempt to explain the events. Well-known performers including Ahmed Helmy, Mona Zaki and Amr Waked appear. On release, the position some of the directors had held in the earlier period caused argument, and that dispute affected the film's circulation. Who it's for: those who follow Egyptian cinema and films made immediately after an event. Who it's not for: viewers expecting a balanced and collected historical account; the film is made of pieces shot in the heat of the moment.