Chat Perdu 

Disoriented by a recent residency rejection by the Belgian state, a young Egyptian filmmaker finds herself lost on a hill in the Ardennes after two weeks of trekking. Two years later, she embarks on a transformative voyage in her atelier, piecing together the physical and mental traces of an incident that shook her to her core. By revisiting footage of the trip, scanning parts of her body, and impersonating figures of power central to her experience— her father, an immigration officer, and the policeman who rescued her—she delves into themes of state violence, authoritarianism, and alienation. Ultimately, the film transforms into a dialogue between herself and these figures, and allows her to answer the question, “How did I get lost?”

Marina Kalleny is an Egyptian, born and raised in Cairo. She considers herself a photographer more than a filmmaker. She works around the theme of transformation. By combining a hybrid style, she questions and exposes what a film is. Despite her BA studies in theatre and drama from Ain Shams University, Marina’s early passion for photography inspired her to direct her first short film when she was 21. “Etnen w Eshreen” (Twenty- Two) is a film about coming of age and growing up, it is considered her first experiment with moving images and sound. The film got screened in different national festivals and won 3 prizes. Later she started an on-going film/photography project “Heliopolis” which she received for it the AFAC support fund for the year 2020. In 2023, Marina acquired an international master’s degree in Documentary Film Directing from the Docnomads Erasmus Mundus joint master that took place in Portugal, Hungary, and Belgium.