Rasha Gawdat

Take Me to the Cinema

We follow the journey of former soldier Nassif, who fled the war in Iraq by hiding in dark cinemas. During this time, he used to watch his favorite film, “Papillon” (1973), starring Steve McQueen. Nowadays, he is looking for this film among the Iraqi cinemas’ ruins. The search for this lost film copy in the old and obsolete cinemas becomes the sole purpose of Nassif and his primary motivation to leave his house. “Take me to the Cinema” allows us to discover Baghdad through Nassif’s eyes as he takes us to streets that contrast with his silent and quiet world. A lot has changed in today’s Iraq. The street where cinema theaters were is now a market that sells military uniforms. It is crowded with young men, fitting military shirts and shoes. The quest for “Papillon” becomes the quest of character, who does not want to acknowledge the transformations of his city, and who wants to cling on to its luminous past through the light of cinema and his inner world.

The Blue Elephant 2

A meeting with a new inmate in the psychiatric hospital flips Dr. Yehia's life upside down. She prophecies that the death of his entire family is only three days away.

Out of the Ordinary

When Yehia's scientific investigation of the paranormal yields nothing, he takes a forced vacation from his work and regular life. Wandering aimlessly, he settles in a seaside guest house that is inhabited by a group of quirky characters. As Yehia grows intimate with the owner and close to her charismatic young daughter, he believes he's stumbled across the magic he had sought for so long. It appears that something out of the ordinary seems to exist within them all, and perhaps also within himself.