"Alexandria"

Featuring: Shady El Gendy Hendan, Sherok El Zoghby, Nermin Zien, Fatma Ibrahiem, Ali Amir

Songs featured:

زوروني كل سنة مرة (Zorouni Kol Sana Mara)

"Visit Me Once A Year"
Traditional

Lyrics and composition: Sayed Darwish
Performed by Nermin Zien

Evi Kalogiropoulou, a Cannes Film Festival award-winning director, was inspired by the urban environment of modern Alexandria and the omnipresence of C. P. Cavafy that she felt there even today. Kalogiropoulou turns her lens on various locations throughout Alexandria, from the Greek schools in Shatby, to the famous Alexandrian Corniche, and the shipyards at the Bahary area. Kalogiropoulou juxtaposes traditional songs such as “Visit Me Once A Year” by the Egyptian singer and composer Sayed Darwish, a contemporary of Cavafy and a song reminiscent of the poem “Come Back,” with an original score produced by the Greek rap singer, Negros tou Moria, whose combines the lyrics of Cavafy’s poems “As Best As You Can,” “The First Step,” and “The City” into a new work entitled “The City of Morris.” A poetic attempt to recreate a city long lost, and to many only as a melancholic memory, the short film shows an Alexandria still alive in verses and music of Cavafy’s poems. Kalogiropoulou commented: “When I first visited Alexandria, I was very inspired by the history of the city. And I was thinking of the city as a story of love; however, the two partners cannot be together because one of them has to leave. Which is actually very similar to Cavafy’s own life. This love motivated me to create the story, the film. I was always imagining him in every corner of the city, living his desire through his poems. I was also very influenced by the people who worked on the film. Some of the film crew appear in the film for this reason.”

Duration: 15 minutes