Locarno review: Khufu (2026)
Locarno Film Festival
Pardi di Domani
International Competition
Courtesy of “Unifrance”
Two sets of people at the same place experience life differently. For one of them, it is all about tourism and leisure. Others, however, have to work and put on a show after show for the former. For instance, at the Pyramids of Giza, we experience them as tourists taking photos with a camel, or even riding it for a while. But hardly anybody asks how it all looks from “behind the scenes”, from the perspective of a herder or a camel itself.
The Egyptian filmmaker Mahmoud Assi dares to ask the said question with his short film Khufu. It premiered at Locarno’s Pardi di domani section.
Sayed (Mohammed Elbadry) is a camel owner who tries to make a living through opportunities offered through the tourist trap in front of the Pyramids. While others have herds of animals and dozens of employees, he is on his own. It is just him and Khufu, the titular camel. Like other animals, camels need food to sustain themselves, but Sayed and his mother (Hanady Abdelkhalek) are extremely poor. Khufu’s imminent death and the practical idea of Sayed’s colleague Sambo are about to expose rifts between the mother and the son, but also the rifts between them and society.
As the writer and director, Mahmoud Assi is skilled enough to keep his cards under wraps and to keep viewers wondering what it is all about. At one point, the film serves as a statement against animal cruelty, as well as a dissection of the state of things on the margins of Egyptian society. On the technical side, Assi utilises the contrasts of the blistering blue-yellow tones for the external shots and the dimly lit ones for depicting the equally warm, but sticky and gloomy interiors in Karim Marold’s cinematography, while Michael Fawzy’s sound design combines the neighbouring sounds with the silence in an effective manner, which all comes together in Samir T. Radwan’s smooth editing. The filmmaker also keeps the ending veiled under the mystery, so The Khufu comes out as a very layered viewing experience.
Courtesy of “Unifrance”
Year:
2026
Runtime:
16’54’’
Countries:
Egypt, France, Sweden, Canada
Language:
Arabic
Directed by:
Mahmoud Assi
Written by:
Mahmoud Assi
Cast:
Hanady Abdelkhalek, Mohammed Elbadry, Ibrahim Ahmed, Halyna Petrova,
Victoria Dolgushina
Cinematography
by: Karim Marold
Editing
by: Samir T. Radwan
Music
by: Walad
Sound
design by: Michael Fawzy
Sound
recording by: Raymond Magdy
Production
design by: Ebram Steven
Colourist:
Mina Nabil
Produced by:
Abdallah Dnewar, Mark Lotfy
Co-produced
by: Mahmoud Assi, Mina Nabil, Bahija
Essoussi-Gagnon, Samuel Yoshimura-Gagnon
Production
companies: ZST, Fig Leaf
Co-production
companies: Film Roots Productions, Kit
& Crew, Rank, Rio Media, Objectif, Stills Post-Production
Studio
Supported by:
UN World Food Programme
Distribution
by: Fig Leaf, Orizon
