The young Egyptian made international waves last year when his New York University thesis film YOMEDDINE was selected for the main competition at Cannes, one of the rare times that a first-time feature has competed for the Palme d’Or. Inspired by a short documentary he made ten years before as an undergraduate in Cairo about a local leper colony, the subsequent feature won the Francois Chalais Prize in Cannes, was picked up for North American distribution by Strand Releasing and had its Middle Eastern premiere at El Gouna.