The Brink of Dreams

Name: The Brink of Dreams
Director: Nada Riyadh & Ayman El Amir
Released: 2024
Duration: 102

13 PG

Rafaat einy ll sama

This documentary chronicles the lives of a group of young Egyptian girls from a very conservative small village in Upper Egypt who formed an all-female acting troupe despite family rejection.

Awards

Cannes Film Festival (2024) – Winner: L'Œil d'or

El Gouna Film Festival (2024) – Nominated: Golden Star: Feature Documentary Competition

El Gouna Film Festival (2024) – Winner: Golden Star: Best Arab Documentary Film

Cannes Film Festival (2024) – Nominated: Nominee Critics' Week Grand Prize

Chicago International Film Festival (2024) – Nominated: Gold Hugo Award: Best Documentary

San Francisco International Film Festival (2025) – Nominated: Golden Gate Award: Documentary Feature

Prague One World Film Festival (2025) – Nominated: Vaclav Havel Special Award

Dokufest International Documentary and Short Film Festival (2024) – Nominated: Human Rights Dox

Torino Film Festival (2024) – Nominated: Prize of the City of Torino: Best International Documentary Film

Torino Film Festival (2024) – Winner: Special Jury Prize: International Documentary Film

International Film Festival and Forum on Human Rights (2025) – Winner: Grand Prix de Genève: Creative Documentary

13 PG

Feature

African

Award Winning

Director(s):

Nada Riyadh & Ayman El Amir

Country:

Egypt | France

Year:

2024

Duration:

102 min

Language(s):

Arabic

RATING:

13 PG

Brink of Dreams Poster Poster — Film Poster

This intimately-made film follows a crew of young street performers in Southern Egypt who are intent on challenging the harshly proscriptive gender roles imposed upon Egyptian women. With a minimum of props and costumes, the all-female troupe devise small plays that feature the audience—and their complicity in the oppression of women—as central players. In documenting these scenes, along with the performers’ personal lives, The Brink of Dreams offers a heart-breaking critique of the position of women in Egyptian society—in a particularly haunting scene, the girls recite a litany of the often brutal comments directed at women who wish to become actors, singers, or simply independent women with their own lives. Beyond the specificity of its subject matter, the film provides a deeply empathetic portrayal of young womanhood and the ways in which the solidarity of women is opposed and disrupted by the demands of men.