Nawara

In Hala Khalil’s 2016 Egyptian film, Nawara works as a maid for a family closely tied to the Mubarak regime. On the eve of the 2011 revolution the family leaves the country for safety and asks her to look after the villa. With the money she is handed for expenses she calls her fiancé Mustafa, and for a short while the two of them taste the life upstairs. The road from the alleys of her neighbourhood to the gated compound carries the worries and the modest hopes of everybody she comes from. The film tells the revolution from the kitchen rather than the square, and its argument is that the poor lose either way. Menna Shalabi won best actress at Dubai for it.