Omar El Zohairy

Directing

Omar El Zohairy

Born

1988-01-01 (38)

Known for

Directing

Credits

9 titles

Omar El Zohairy studied film directing at the High Institute of Cinema in Cairo and worked as an assistant director on feature films of Egypt’s most prominent filmmakers, including Yousri Nasrallah. His short film, The Aftermath of the Inauguration of the Public Toilet at Kilometre 375, was the first Egyptian film to be selected for the Cinéfondation competition at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival, the film went on to win several awards around the world.

Known for

18 Days poster
6.9

10 filmmakers provide 10 separate stories focusing on the 18 days of the 2011 Egyptian revolution. Ten stories they have experienced, heard, or imagined.

18 Days

2011

Feathers poster
5.8

A passive mother who dedicates her life to her husband and children. Stuck in daily, repetitive, mundane chores, she has made herself as little as she possibly could. When a magic trick goes wrong at her 4-year-old son's birthday party, an avalanche of coincidental absurdities befalls the family. The magician turns her husband, the authoritarian father, into a chicken. The mother is now forced to come to the fore and take care of the family while moving heaven and earth to bring her husband back. As she tries to survive, she goes through a rough and absurd transformation.

Feathers

2021

The Aftermath of the Inauguration of the Public Toilet at Kilometer 375 poster
6.0

The film follows the aftermath of an unfortunate incident at the inauguration of a public toilet located in the middle of the Egyptian desert. Inspired by Anton Chekhov's short story "The Death Of A Government Clerk," director El Zohairy offers us a story about fear in a milieu where uniformity and hierarchy reigns, in which the poses and gestures of the actors express a lot more than their words.

The Aftermath of the Inauguration of the Public Toilet at Kilometer 375

2014

Breath out poster
NR

Between exhale and inhale, the events of the film revolve around a couple over the age of seventy, whose life is silent, surrounded by boring, repetitive daily details.

Breath out

2011

Breathe Out poster
NR

The windows are closed. Everything the old man can hear is the heavy breath of his wife. The slow routines of ageing and the decay of the body are closely examined in beautiful intensity.

Breathe Out

2011

Habeeby Da poster
NR

A boy's childhood crush from a summer resort loses her scarf on the journey home, unknowingly leaving him with a piece of herself. Years later, now an artist, he reminisces about his first experience of limerence and still keeps the thought of her wrapped around his heart.

Habeeby Da

2025

Film credits

Behind the camera

Feathers poster
5.8

A passive mother who dedicates her life to her husband and children. Stuck in daily, repetitive, mundane chores, she has made herself as little as she possibly could. When a magic trick goes wrong at her 4-year-old son's birthday party, an avalanche of coincidental absurdities befalls the family. The magician turns her husband, the authoritarian father, into a chicken. The mother is now forced to come to the fore and take care of the family while moving heaven and earth to bring her husband back. As she tries to survive, she goes through a rough and absurd transformation.

Feathers

2021

Feathers poster
5.8

A passive mother who dedicates her life to her husband and children. Stuck in daily, repetitive, mundane chores, she has made herself as little as she possibly could. When a magic trick goes wrong at her 4-year-old son's birthday party, an avalanche of coincidental absurdities befalls the family. The magician turns her husband, the authoritarian father, into a chicken. The mother is now forced to come to the fore and take care of the family while moving heaven and earth to bring her husband back. As she tries to survive, she goes through a rough and absurd transformation.

Feathers

2021

The Aftermath of the Inauguration of the Public Toilet at Kilometer 375 poster
6.0

The film follows the aftermath of an unfortunate incident at the inauguration of a public toilet located in the middle of the Egyptian desert. Inspired by Anton Chekhov's short story "The Death Of A Government Clerk," director El Zohairy offers us a story about fear in a milieu where uniformity and hierarchy reigns, in which the poses and gestures of the actors express a lot more than their words.

The Aftermath of the Inauguration of the Public Toilet at Kilometer 375

2014

Breath out poster
NR

Between exhale and inhale, the events of the film revolve around a couple over the age of seventy, whose life is silent, surrounded by boring, repetitive daily details.

Breath out

2011

Breath out poster
NR

Between exhale and inhale, the events of the film revolve around a couple over the age of seventy, whose life is silent, surrounded by boring, repetitive daily details.

Breath out

2011

Breathe Out poster
NR

The windows are closed. Everything the old man can hear is the heavy breath of his wife. The slow routines of ageing and the decay of the body are closely examined in beautiful intensity.

Breathe Out

2011

Breathe Out poster
NR

The windows are closed. Everything the old man can hear is the heavy breath of his wife. The slow routines of ageing and the decay of the body are closely examined in beautiful intensity.

Breathe Out

2011

Habeeby Da poster
NR

A boy's childhood crush from a summer resort loses her scarf on the journey home, unknowingly leaving him with a piece of herself. Years later, now an artist, he reminisces about his first experience of limerence and still keeps the thought of her wrapped around his heart.

Habeeby Da

2025