Shall I Compare You To a Summer’s Day?
Mohammad Shawky Hassan
In “Shall I Compare You With a Summer’s Day”, the stage is everything. A guy, laying on a bed, starts detailing his sexual adventures to his lover, and what may seem anecdotal at first becomes spectacular thanks to a hyper-stylized stage, some theater-like lighting, and a Greek chorus of men singing and following the stories. We are transported right in the middle of a “One Thousand and One Nights”-style setting, within an aptly-named Club Scherezade, where queer affection, non-normative relationships, poetry, and pop are intermingled in an unrestrained series of tales that deal with the good, the bad, the ugly, and the political in the lives of a group of Egyptian men living as queer and migrants. A balancing act between the playfulness of style and not shying away from the hardships of trying out ways of living that disrupt tradition.
12 May 2022
21:45 h, Mal Seh'n Kino
More information
Direction | Mohammad Shawky Hassan |
Country | 43 |
Year | 2022 |
Duration | 66 min |
Language | Original with English Subtitles |
Production | Mohammad Shawky Hassan, Maximilian Haslberger, Hesham Marold |
Cast | Donia Massoud, Ahmed El Gendy, Salim Mrad, Nadim Bahsoun |
Camera | Carlos Vasquez |
Script | Mohammad Shawky Hassan |
Music | Amen Feizabadi |
Competition film – Berlinale 2022
About the director
Born in 1981 in Cairo, Egypt. Mohammad Shawky Hassan studied philosophy, film direction and film studies and works as a director, writer, cinematographer and editor. His short film And on a Different Note was shown in the 2015 Forum Expanded programme and has been acquired as part of the MoMA’s permanent exhibition. (Berlinale)
Reviews
“Poetry and performance take centre stage in Mohammad Shawky Hassan's inventive challenge to society's heteronormativity” Alicia Haddick (Little White Lies)
Double Feature with "Venus in Nykes"
International Feature Film Program