Jihan El-Tahri

Documentary about Cuban's involvement in African politics.

In COMPLEXIFYING RESTITUTION (2022), El-Tahri invites the viewer into the spacetime of a project that brings together archive researchers, artists, and filmmakers to interpret, rethink, and reappropriate the archive. The purpose of this engagement with the archive is not to simply delve into history and memory in order to look backward, but rather to use that past knowledge—the fragments that can be unearthed—as a tool to reinterpret our current reality and imagine an alternative future. (Berlin Biennale)

April, 1994. Genocide in Rwanda. 800,000 dead. A catastrophe that upset the balance in the entire region. The Great Lakes region of Africa ended the year with a bloodbath. This documentary shows the intrigues, the dramatic effects, the treasons, the vengeances that prevailed over those years and whose only goal was to maintain or increase each faction’s area of influence. In just ten years, the population saw all their hopes vanish: The dream of an Africa in control of its own destiny, alimentary self-sufficiency, the end of interethnic conflicts

From Gamal Abdel Nasser to Anwar Sadat, to Hosni Mubarak, “The Pharaohs of Modern Egypt” follows the path of the successive regimes in power, and reveals their common goal to carefully lay the basis of a solid independence, but which, on the other hand, led to the revolution on Tahrir Square in 2011. President Anwar Sadat led the country down the diametrically opposite path. He forged an alliance with the Muslim Brotherhood, the regime’s life-long enemy, and rerouted the country onto the road of capitalism. By ignoring increasing wealth gaps and insisting on peace with Israel at all political costs, the “pious” president opened up the Pandora’s Box of radical Islam, a decision that cost him his life, and which has since had repercussions on the entire world.

From the exile of King Farouk in 1952 to the departure of Hosni Mubarak in 2011, this three-part documentary revisits Egypt's contemporary history, focusing on four recurring pillars: the army, civil society, the Muslim Brotherhood and the country's interactions with foreign powers.

A Special History of Saudi Arabia, it's troubled relationship with America, and the challenges confronting a nation where tradition an modernity are in violent collision.

Documentary about Cuban's involvement in African politics.

Documentary about Cuban's involvement in African politics.

In COMPLEXIFYING RESTITUTION (2022), El-Tahri invites the viewer into the spacetime of a project that brings together archive researchers, artists, and filmmakers to interpret, rethink, and reappropriate the archive. The purpose of this engagement with the archive is not to simply delve into history and memory in order to look backward, but rather to use that past knowledge—the fragments that can be unearthed—as a tool to reinterpret our current reality and imagine an alternative future. (Berlin Biennale)

April, 1994. Genocide in Rwanda. 800,000 dead. A catastrophe that upset the balance in the entire region. The Great Lakes region of Africa ended the year with a bloodbath. This documentary shows the intrigues, the dramatic effects, the treasons, the vengeances that prevailed over those years and whose only goal was to maintain or increase each faction’s area of influence. In just ten years, the population saw all their hopes vanish: The dream of an Africa in control of its own destiny, alimentary self-sufficiency, the end of interethnic conflicts

From Gamal Abdel Nasser to Anwar Sadat, to Hosni Mubarak, “The Pharaohs of Modern Egypt” follows the path of the successive regimes in power, and reveals their common goal to carefully lay the basis of a solid independence, but which, on the other hand, led to the revolution on Tahrir Square in 2011. President Anwar Sadat led the country down the diametrically opposite path. He forged an alliance with the Muslim Brotherhood, the regime’s life-long enemy, and rerouted the country onto the road of capitalism. By ignoring increasing wealth gaps and insisting on peace with Israel at all political costs, the “pious” president opened up the Pandora’s Box of radical Islam, a decision that cost him his life, and which has since had repercussions on the entire world.

A Special History of Saudi Arabia, it's troubled relationship with America, and the challenges confronting a nation where tradition an modernity are in violent collision.

Behind the Rainbow explores the transition of the African National Congress (ANC) from its role as a liberation organization to its position as South Africa's ruling party, by means of the evolution of the relationship between two of its most prominent leaders, Thabo Mbeki and Jacob Zuma. Exiled under Apartheid, brothers in arms following Mandela's leadership, they loyally labored to build a non-racial state. Now they are bitter rivals. Their confrontation threatens to tear apart the ANC and the country, mean while the poor desperately seek hope in change and the elite fight for the spoils of victory.

Every day the U.S. donates millions of tons of food to famine victims and other starving people in the world's poorest countries. This provocative documentary, through an in-depth case study of a recent famine crisis in Zambia, shows how these aid programs may address an immediate crisis but at the same time can create long-term problems for the recipient nation.

From Gamal Abdel Nasser to Anwar Sadat, to Hosni Mubarak, “The Pharaohs of Modern Egypt” follows the path of the successive regimes in power, and reveals their common goal to carefully lay the basis of a solid independence, but which, on the other hand, led to the revolution on Tahrir Square in 2011. President Anwar Sadat led the country down the diametrically opposite path. He forged an alliance with the Muslim Brotherhood, the regime’s life-long enemy, and rerouted the country onto the road of capitalism. By ignoring increasing wealth gaps and insisting on peace with Israel at all political costs, the “pious” president opened up the Pandora’s Box of radical Islam, a decision that cost him his life, and which has since had repercussions on the entire world.

From Gamal Abdel Nasser to Anwar Sadat, to Hosni Mubarak, “The Pharaohs of Modern Egypt” follows the path of the successive regimes in power and reveals their common goal to carefully lay the basis of a solid independence, but which, on the other hand, led to the revolution on Tahrir Square in 2011. President Anwar Sadat led the country down the diametrically opposite path. He forged an alliance with the Muslim Brotherhood, the regime’s life-long enemy, and rerouted the country onto the road of capitalism. By ignoring increasing wealth gaps and insisting on peace with Israel at all political costs, the “pious” president opened up the Pandora’s Box of radical Islam, a decision that cost him his life, and which has since had repercussions on the entire world.