ABO ZAABAL 89

Bassam Mortada, the son of political activists, was 5-years-old when he first visited his father, Mahmoud, in the notorious Abo Zaabal prison. Raised by his mother, Bassam, dredges up the faded memories of his childhood 35 years later in an attempt to comprehend the reasons behind his father’s absence and heal the wounds of his shattered family unit. Through discussions with his parents, interviews with their friends, old recordings, photographs, newspaper cuttings, and a theatrical monologue, Bassam unearths his family history as it was shaped by the political circumstances of the time. In this profoundly personal and political documentary, what moves us is not only the emotionally charged relationship between father and son, or the disarmingly honest attempt to mend their relationship but also the filmmaker’s courage in exploring, in a rare moment for Egyptian cinema, Egypt’s contemporary history.