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Yahoo
5 days ago
- Health
- Yahoo
Bring Back Communal Kid Discipline
On a trip to Prague a couple of years ago, my family piled into a rapidly filling metro car, and I wound up sitting next to my 6-year-old daughter, while her 4-year-old sister sat directly across from us, on her own. At one point, my youngest pulled a knee up to her chest and rested her foot on the seat. Almost immediately, a woman sitting next to her, who looked to be about 70, reached out and gently touched my daughter's foot, signaling her to put it down. My daughter was surprised, maybe a little embarrassed. But she understood and quickly obeyed. For a split second, I wondered if I ought to feel chastised: Perhaps the woman was judging me for having failed at some basic parental duty. But something about the matter-of-fact, almost automatic way the woman had intervened reassured me that she wasn't thinking much about me at all. She was just going through the motions of an ordinary day on the train, in which reminding a child not to put her foot on the seat was a perfectly natural gesture. Ultimately, I was grateful for the woman's tap on my daughter's foot. But the exchange also felt foreign. In my experience, that sort of instruction, from a random adult to a stranger's child, isn't much of a thing in America (or, for what it's worth, in the United Kingdom, where I currently live). Many people don't seem to think they have the authority to instruct, let alone touch, a kid who isn't theirs. They tend to leave it to the parent to manage a child's behavior—or they may silently fume when the parent doesn't step up. To informally test that assumption, I created a short online survey and ended up interacting with a dozen people from around the United States. Some were parents; some were not. Every single one said that outside certain situations—where they were familiar with a kid's parents, or where a child's safety was in question—they would hesitate before telling someone else's kid what to do, for fear of upsetting the parent. Marty Sullivan, a technology consultant based in Tennessee, gave a representative answer: 'Generally I'd prefer to avoid risking escalation.' These responses struck me as a bit of a shame, because the exchange between my daughter and the woman in Prague seemed to reflect something altogether good. And I know I can't be alone in that thought: Both historical precedent and cultural norms in other parts of the world reinforce the idea that a stranger's meddling in the disciplining of children can have significant merits. The highly individualistic approach to managing kids' behavior in public is particularly American—and a historical anomaly. David Lancy, an anthropologist and a professor emeritus at Utah State University, wrote to me that for the majority of human existence, it was unquestionable that ''the whole village' participates' in child-rearing. 'Siblings, peers, aunts, grandmas,' he told me, 'all have distinct roles, including 'correcting.'' When I asked Steven Mintz, a historian of families and childhood at the University of Texas at Austin, whether child-rearing in the United States, specifically, had ever involved a more collective approach, he seemed almost tickled: 'Did it ever!' he wrote back. He recalled that during his own childhood, in the 1950s, he was 'constantly corrected' by people other than his parents for his poor posture, hygiene, grooming, and language. Child-rearing into the first half of the 20th century was, he noted, 'far more of a communal and public endeavor'—an approach that entailed a fair amount of what would, by contemporary standards, probably be considered intrusion. 'Neighbors, teachers, shopkeepers, and even strangers on the street,' Mintz wrote, 'felt empowered, and often morally obligated, to correct a child's misbehavior, scold a lack of manners, break up a fight, or escort a wandering child back home.' Today, this sort of 'village style' oversight remains a norm in some pockets of the United States. Michelle Peters, a project manager in El Paso, Texas, whose family has roots in Mexico, told me that she has seen communities in both the U.S. and Mexico take a more collective approach to child-rearing. 'It is more common and more acceptable for adults to correct children who are not their own,' she said, and people feel 'a greater sense of social intimacy and immediacy,' which extends to caregiving in public settings. Yet in much of the United States, Mintz told me, the collective has given way to a 'privatized and protected model of parenting.' [Read: The isolation of intensive parenting] As in other aspects of parenthood, that closed-off approach gives parents more control but also puts them under more pressure. If you're the sole arbiter of your child's public behavior, you have to keep a pretty close eye on your kid at all times. That sense of responsibility can also produce anxiety: Rather than just parenting as I see fit, I often find myself guessing—and second-guessing—whether my kids are bothering people or violating some unspoken rule. (Is my daughter standing way too close to that guy? Does that shopkeeper mind that my kid is flipping through their magazines?) Amy Banta, a mom of three in Salt Lake City, told me that this is one reason she really appreciates it when other people step in to correct her kids. 'I cannot anticipate your every boundary that my child might possibly cross,' she said. 'You're gonna have to help me out.' If the goal is to steadily acquaint children with the conventions of polite society, it isn't clear that filtering all guidance through parents is the most effective approach. For one thing, kids are smart. A child who knows that his parent or other caregiver is the only one who will ever correct him might reasonably conclude that he can get up to no good whenever that adult turns away. What's more, I have found that a stranger's gentle intervention—as opposed to my nagging—can be a more effective means of conveying to my kids that the people around them are real people, with their own needs, whose space and comfort one ought to respect. Another adult's nudging can function as a kind of 'social proof,' as Banta put it—a reinforcement of the lessons a parent is trying to impart. [Read: A grand experiment in parenthood and friendship] Banta told me about a time when she took her then-5-year-old to a community-theater performance and he struggled to sit still. 'I kept telling him that he couldn't wiggle in his seat, because he was shaking the whole row,' Banta recalled, but 'he didn't want to listen to me, because he was having so much fun bouncing.' At intermission, another woman in the row asked Banta's son to stop shaking the seats so much. 'I looked at my son and said, 'See? It's not just me,'' Banta told me. He was far more mindful of his movements during the second act, periodically checking to see if he was bothering the woman down the row—who gave him a big thumbs-up after the show ended. The collective approach to correcting kids' behavior can have its drawbacks, of course. Plenty of people have truly unreasonable expectations about the way kids should act in public. Miranda Rake, a writer and mother of two in Oregon, told me that she thinks tolerance for ordinary kid behavior in much of America is too low. Even in Portland, which she considers quite laid back, she 'gets the stink eye' in many places and feels like she's 'on eggshells in a lot of coffee shops and certainly restaurants,' she said. 'There just isn't a culture of community around kids here.' In her view, that complicates the question of whether interventions from nonparents would make the environment more or less family friendly. Rake's concern is not entirely unfounded. In the United States, collective supervision of children has typically coincided with community norms that 'could be rigid or exclusionary,' Mintz told me, 'and the authority of adults could at times be authoritarian or abusive.' Meanwhile, in many modern societies outside America, tolerance for childlike unruliness is part and parcel of the more communal approach to raising kids. (That was also the norm for most of our evolutionary past, Sarah B. Hrdy, an anthropologist who has extensively studied child-rearing dynamics in traditional hunter-gatherer societies, told me. Where instruction does occur in such cultures, it tends to involve subtle, often nonverbal guidance—of the sort I encountered in Prague—rather than scolding or censure.) [Read: Is it wrong to tell kids to apologize?] The challenge of balancing tolerance and discipline aside, both Hrdy and Mintz observed that in many ways, American society is simply not set up for a thriving culture of community oversight. Where such a culture once existed, it was propped up by various forms of social infrastructure—the kind that has been steadily hollowed out over the past several decades, Mintz told me. American neighborhoods used to be more tightly knit. A lower proportion of mothers were employed outside the home, which meant that neighborhoods were filled with adults during the day who could keep an eye on one another's children. A strongly ingrained cultural respect for adult authority meant that 'few questioned a neighbor's right to reprimand a child for rudeness or risk-taking behavior,' Mintz said, and the potential personal risks (legal or otherwise) of disciplining a child not your own were fewer: 'Adults could discipline, correct, or even physically intervene without fear of being sued, shamed, or filmed.' In an era when fewer people know or interact with their neighbors, and social trust has waned, the thought of reviving collective child-rearing norms may seem a little far-fetched. And yet, the Americans I spoke with seemed, on the whole, largely open to being a bit more direct with other people's kids—if only they could have assurance that such involvement would be welcome. I'll come out and say it: I would certainly welcome it. Article originally published at The Atlantic
Atlantic
6 days ago
- General
- Atlantic
Go Ahead, Scold My Kid
On a trip to Prague a couple of years ago, my family piled into a rapidly filling metro car, and I wound up sitting next to my 6-year-old daughter, while her 4-year-old sister sat directly across from us, on her own. At one point, my youngest pulled a knee up to her chest and rested her foot on the seat. Almost immediately, a woman sitting next to her, who looked to be about 70, reached out and gently touched my daughter's foot, signaling her to put it down. My daughter was surprised, maybe a little embarrassed. But she understood and quickly obeyed. For a split second, I wondered if I ought to feel chastised: Perhaps the woman was judging me for having failed at some basic parental duty. But something about the matter-of-fact, almost automatic way the woman had intervened reassured me that she wasn't thinking much about me at all. She was just going through the motions of an ordinary day on the train, in which reminding a child not to put her foot on the seat was a perfectly natural gesture. Ultimately, I was grateful for the woman's tap on my daughter's foot. But the exchange also felt foreign. In my experience, that sort of instruction, from a random adult to a stranger's child, isn't much of a thing in America (or, for what it's worth, in the United Kingdom, where I currently live). Many people don't seem to think they have the authority to instruct, let alone touch, a kid who isn't theirs. They tend to leave it to the parent to manage a child's behavior—or they may silently fume when the parent doesn't step up. To informally test that assumption, I created a short online survey and ended up interacting with a dozen people from around the United States. Some were parents; some were not. Every single one said that outside certain situations—where they were familiar with a kid's parents, or where a child's safety was in question—they would hesitate before telling someone else's kid what to do, for fear of upsetting the parent. Marty Sullivan, a technology consultant based in Tennessee, gave a representative answer: 'Generally I'd prefer to avoid risking escalation.' These responses struck me as a bit of a shame, because the exchange between my daughter and the woman in Prague seemed to reflect something altogether good. And I know I can't be alone in that thought: Both historical precedent and cultural norms in other parts of the world reinforce the idea that a stranger's meddling in the disciplining of children can have significant merits. The highly individualistic approach to managing kids' behavior in public is particularly American—and a historical anomaly. David Lancy, an anthropologist and a professor emeritus at Utah State University, wrote to me that for the majority of human existence, it was unquestionable that ''the whole village' participates' in child-rearing. 'Siblings, peers, aunts, grandmas,' he told me, 'all have distinct roles, including 'correcting.'' When I asked Steven Mintz, a historian of families and childhood at the University of Texas at Austin, whether child-rearing in the United States, specifically, had ever involved a more collective approach, he seemed almost tickled: 'Did it ever!' he wrote back. He recalled that during his own childhood, in the 1950s, he was 'constantly corrected' by people other than his parents for his poor posture, hygiene, grooming, and language. Child-rearing into the first half of the 20th century was, he noted, 'far more of a communal and public endeavor'—an approach that entailed a fair amount of what would, by contemporary standards, probably be considered intrusion. 'Neighbors, teachers, shopkeepers, and even strangers on the street,' Mintz wrote, 'felt empowered, and often morally obligated, to correct a child's misbehavior, scold a lack of manners, break up a fight, or escort a wandering child back home.' Today, this sort of 'village style' oversight remains a norm in some pockets of the United States. Michelle Peters, a project manager in El Paso, Texas, whose family has roots in Mexico, told me that she has seen communities in both the U.S. and Mexico take a more collective approach to child-rearing. 'It is more common and more acceptable for adults to correct children who are not their own,' she said, and people feel 'a greater sense of social intimacy and immediacy,' which extends to caregiving in public settings. Yet in much of the United States, Mintz told me, the collective has given way to a 'privatized and protected model of parenting.' As in other aspects of parenthood, that closed-off approach gives parents more control but also puts them under more pressure. If you're the sole arbiter of your child's public behavior, you have to keep a pretty close eye on your kid at all times. That sense of responsibility can also produce anxiety: Rather than just parenting as I see fit, I often find myself guessing—and second-guessing—whether my kids are bothering people or violating some unspoken rule. (Is my daughter standing way too close to that guy? Does that shopkeeper mind that my kid is flipping through their magazines?) Amy Banta, a mom of three in Salt Lake City, told me that this is one reason she really appreciates it when other people step in to correct her kids. 'I cannot anticipate your every boundary that my child might possibly cross,' she said. 'You're gonna have to help me out.' If the goal is to steadily acquaint children with the conventions of polite society, it isn't clear that filtering all guidance through parents is the most effective approach. For one thing, kids are smart. A child who knows that his parent or other caregiver is the only one who will ever correct him might reasonably conclude that he can get up to no good whenever that adult turns away. What's more, I have found that a stranger's gentle intervention—as opposed to my nagging—can be a more effective means of conveying to my kids that the people around them are real people, with their own needs, whose space and comfort one ought to respect. Another adult's nudging can function as a kind of 'social proof,' as Banta put it—a reinforcement of the lessons a parent is trying to impart. Banta told me about a time when she took her then-5-year-old to a community-theater performance and he struggled to sit still. 'I kept telling him that he couldn't wiggle in his seat, because he was shaking the whole row,' Banta recalled, but 'he didn't want to listen to me, because he was having so much fun bouncing.' At intermission, another woman in the row asked Banta's son to stop shaking the seats so much. 'I looked at my son and said, 'See? It's not just me,'' Banta told me. He was far more mindful of his movements during the second act, periodically checking to see if he was bothering the woman down the row—who gave him a big thumbs-up after the show ended. The collective approach to correcting kids' behavior can have its drawbacks, of course. Plenty of people have truly unreasonable expectations about the way kids should act in public. Miranda Rake, a writer and mother of two in Oregon, told me that she thinks tolerance for ordinary kid behavior in much of America is too low. Even in Portland, which she considers quite laid back, she 'gets the stink eye' in many places and feels like she's 'on eggshells in a lot of coffee shops and certainly restaurants,' she said. 'There just isn't a culture of community around kids here.' In her view, that complicates the question of whether interventions from nonparents would make the environment more or less family friendly. Rake's concern is not entirely unfounded. In the United States, collective supervision of children has typically coincided with community norms that 'could be rigid or exclusionary,' Mintz told me, 'and the authority of adults could at times be authoritarian or abusive.' Meanwhile, in many modern societies outside America, tolerance for childlike unruliness is part and parcel of the more communal approach to raising kids. (That was also the norm for most of our evolutionary past, Sarah B. Hrdy, an anthropologist who has extensively studied child-rearing dynamics in traditional hunter-gatherer societies, told me. Where instruction does occur in such cultures, it tends to involve subtle, often nonverbal guidance—of the sort I encountered in Prague—rather than scolding or censure.) The challenge of balancing tolerance and discipline aside, both Hrdy and Mintz observed that in many ways, American society is simply not set up for a thriving culture of community oversight. Where such a culture once existed, it was propped up by various forms of social infrastructure—the kind that has been steadily hollowed out over the past several decades, Mintz told me. American neighborhoods used to be more tightly knit. A lower proportion of mothers were employed outside the home, which meant that neighborhoods were filled with adults during the day who could keep an eye on one another's children. A strongly ingrained cultural respect for adult authority meant that 'few questioned a neighbor's right to reprimand a child for rudeness or risk-taking behavior,' Mintz said, and the potential personal risks (legal or otherwise) of disciplining a child not your own were fewer: 'Adults could discipline, correct, or even physically intervene without fear of being sued, shamed, or filmed.' In an era when fewer people know or interact with their neighbors, and social trust has waned, the thought of reviving collective child-rearing norms may seem a little far-fetched. And yet, the Americans I spoke with seemed, on the whole, largely open to being a bit more direct with other people's kids—if only they could have assurance that such involvement would be welcome. I'll come out and say it: I would certainly welcome it.
Global News
22-05-2025
- Climate
- Global News
‘The path disappeared:' Landslide sweeps away home and road northeast of Montreal
André Lemire said he was woken up early Wednesday morning by his partner, who had heard ominous noises outside the farm where they live in Ste-Monique, Que. They left the home, and when he looked back he saw the ground open up, swallowing up the land and his neighbour's house. 'The path disappeared behind me,' Lemire said in an interview. A major landslide swept away a home and part of a road northeast of Montreal at around 6 a.m. Wednesday, leaving a gaping hole in the land but no injuries. The landslide – estimated at 760 metres long and 150 wide – was described by an expert as one of the biggest the province has seen in recent years. Lemire, who has lived in the area for decades, said the region is known to be landslide-prone. 'I knew what was happening, because I knew it would happen one day,' said Lemire, whose farm is by the Nicolet River. Story continues below advertisement Lemire said his neighbour, Fernand Therrien, was able to escape before the landslide consumed the home. Another neighbour said Therrien owned four dogs, who were also safe. Sylvain Gallant, regional civil security director, told reporters in Ste-Monique that the house was empty when the landslide occurred and nobody was hurt. On Wednesday afternoon, the roof of the buried house was visible at the bottom of the hole. Gallant originally estimated the size at 300 metres by 100 metres earlier in the day, but later revised that upward. In the morning, he said the hole was still growing. 'It's certain that under current conditions, this landslide will grow even larger because the walls are still too steep,' he said. Get daily National news Get the day's top news, political, economic, and current affairs headlines, delivered to your inbox once a day. Sign up for daily National newsletter Sign Up By providing your email address, you have read and agree to Global News' Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy Several surrounding homes, including Lemire's, were evacuated out of caution. Gallant said it wasn't clear when the evacuees would be able to return. Gallant it was still too early to determine the cause of the natural disaster, but noted that there had been heavy rain in recent days. 'The Ste-Monique area is known for landslides,' he said. 'This magnitude is quite rare, but it's an area that's on sensitive clay, so these are things that can happen.' Lemire confirmed there have always been rockfalls and slides in the region. At one time, landowners sunk wood, rocks and even old cars along the riverbanks in the hopes of stabilizing them, he said. Story continues below advertisement Ste-Monique Mayor Denise Gendron said the community of about 500 people faces landslide risks on both sides of the Nicolet River. The province has published maps indicating areas of higher risk, but she said the homes in the community predate the maps. 'Even here in the village, there is a large part that is at risk,' she said at city hall, where she met evacuees. Philippe Gachon, a professor at Université du Québec à Montreal's geography department, said a landslide of that magnitude 'has rarely been seen in recent years in Quebec.' However, he said many parts of the province, especially along floodplains, are on clay, which can present a landslide risk. The land has also become less stable in recent years due to more extreme weather conditions, he said. Clay can become unstable due to excessive rain or extreme dryness, he explained — and Quebec has seen both in recent years. 'Clay doesn't like when there's too much water, and it doesn't like it either when there isn't enough water because it has a tendency to fracture,' he said in a phone interview. Gachon, who also directs a research network that studies flooding in the province, said researchers are working to develop better tools to measure and monitor the water levels in the ground. Story continues below advertisement As extreme weather becomes more common, he says it's vital to better understand the entirety of the water cycle in the province, which he said is vulnerable to hydrological 'whiplash' due to alternating periods of extreme wet and dryness. 'It's clear that with climate change, we're going to face events we've never experienced before, certain phenomena we've never seen before in history,' he said. With time, he said the province can get better at predicting landslides, and developing better tools to prevent them. 'Faced with the unknown, we're going to have to develop new ways of doing things,' he said. A major landslide occurred in 1955 in the nearby city of Nicolet, killing three people and causing millions of dollars in damage. A summary of a 1964 report on the National Research Council website said slope stability was a problem in the valleys of the St. Lawrence and Ottawa rivers due to 'extra-sensitive' marine clay, which 'liquefies when it is disturbed from its natural state.'
Yahoo
15-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Movie Review: The Weeknd's 'Hurry Up Tomorrow' is a surrealist vanity project
NEW YORK (AP) — It's the final night of tour. SoFi Stadium, just outside Los Angeles, is packed. 80,000 fans stand before The Weeknd, an endless sea of blinding lights. The bestselling artist born Abel Tesfaye emerges onstage. He launches into the first song. Less than a minute goes by, and the unthinkable happens: His voice cracks. And then it is gone. That September night in 2022 marked a turning point for Tesfaye. He mines the scene in 'Hurry Up Tomorrow, ' where, ironically, it arrives too late. The tedium of an incoherent first act paints the charismatic performer — one of the last few decades' most popular — as an unempathetic protagonist in a nonlinear and nonsensical world. But how much of The Weeknd is here, really? In his first leading role in a feature film, directed by Trey Edward Shults, Tesfaye plays a fictionalized version of himself, an insomniac musician (as made explicitly clear in the 'Wake Me Up' leitmotif, where he sings, 'Sun is never rising / I don't know if it's day or night'). He's marred by a recent breakup from an ex portrayed in a cruel voicemail message ('I used to think you were a good person,' she says) and a hedonistic lifestyle, instigated by his superficial friend-manager Lee, played Barry Keoghan. Shortly after Tesfaye loses his voice, a psychosomatic ailment, he meets superfan Amina, portrayed by Jenna Ortega. She offers temporary comfort and, in return, is afforded no agency. She exists for him. Soon, the uninspired horrors begin, culminating in what recalls the torture scene in 'Reservoir Dogs' with less violence. Instead, Amina — when she is not weeping; I urge all viewers to keep a 'cry count' and consider what feminist blogs might have to say — lip-syncs some of The Weeknd's biggest hits back to him, explaining that they're all about 'emptiness and heartbreak.' Woven throughout is some conversation about absent fathers and fear of abandonment, with unearned delivery and first-draft acuity — something gesturing at depth without piercing the surface. According to press materials, Amina and Lee are not real people but representations of Tesfaye. She is meant to represent Tesfaye's disconnected, 'deeper emotional self' — and Lee, his public persona. That is not made explicitly clear in the film, except in a very generous reading of the ending. Subtext only works when there is context to back it up, otherwise, you are left with 'Hurry Up Tomorrow': an exciting vanity project with surrealist imagination but stiff writing, no stakes, limited emotional weight and an unclear narrative. That won't be an issue for superfans, of course — those intimately familiar with The Weeknd's music and career. This film appears to be for them and Tesfaye, a producer, alone; they have the framework in which to enjoy the runtime. Considering that fandom is the dominant form of popular culture, it's not a bad business decision. And it's worked for him before. This is not Tesfaye's first foray into acting. Aside from his cameo in 'Uncut Gems,' he starred in HBO's 2023 series 'The Idol. ' He co-created the show with Sam Levinson, a show that similarly presented unearned provocation. At the time, 'The Idol' received criticism for its sadomasochistic storytelling that emerged after a shift away from 'the female perspective,' allegedly a request from Tesfaye. It was not a clever or subversive show, nor was it really even about anything, but it did inspire conversation. It's easy to see how 'Hurry Up Tomorrow' may have similar effects. In a moment where autobiographical films about musicians are playful and creative — Pharrell Williams' Lego partnership 'Piece by Piece' comes to mind, as does Robbie Williams' ' Better Man ' — 'Hurry Up Tomorrow' feels like a misstep for those outside The Weeknd's most devoted. Of course, the film does not identify as a biopic. But it could've benefited from less self-seriousness. And editing. But what about the music? 'Hurry Up Tomorrow' is connected to Tesfaye's latest album of the same name — and the final chapter in The Weeknd's record-breaking trilogy that began with 2020's 'After Hours' and continued with 2022's 'Dawn FM.' The album, the quietest of the series, worked as an allegory on the trials of fame — a topic long covered by the most successful purveyors of pop. Retrospectively, it works best as a film's soundtrack than a stand-alone record, ambitious. Like the movie, it gestures at criticism of the celebrity-industrial complex without accomplishing it. It seems obvious, now, to learn that the movie predates the record. The film's strength far and away is its score, composed by Tesfaye with Daniel Lopatin (better known as the experimental electronic musician Oneohtrix Point Never and for his 'Good Time' and 'Uncut Gems' scores). It builds from Tesfaye's discography and morphs into something physical and psychedelic — at its most elated, dread-filled and clubby. It is so affecting, it almost distracts from moments of dizzying cinematography, with the films' penchant for spinning frames, zooms into upside skylines, blurred vision and erratic lights. Those tools feel better suited for a music video, the kind of sophisticated visual world Tesfaye has developed in his pop career. They elevate his euphoric, layered, evocative dance-pop, but they do not translate in this film. 'Hurry Up Tomorrow,' a Lionsgate release, is rated R by the Motion Picture Association for language throughout, drug use, some bloody violence and brief nudity. Running time: 105 minutes. One and a half stars out of four.
Egypt Today
15-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Egypt Today
Egyptian Filmmakers Shine Bright at Cannes Film Festival as Morad Mostafa, Sawsan Youssef, Ali El Arabi, and Namir Abdel Messeeh Lead the Way
The 78th edition of the world's most prestigious film festival, Cannes, continues its activities, and this year marks a distinguished presence for Egyptian cinema through two authentic contributions that reflect the evolution of Egypt's independent film scene and its growing role in global cinema. 1. Morad Mostafa and Sawsan Youssef – Aisha Can't Fly Away (Un Certain Regard Section) Director Morad Mostafa brings Egyptian cinema back to the Un Certain Regard section after a nine-year absence. The last Egyptian film to feature in this category was Mohamed Diab's Clash, starring Nelly Karim. Aisha Can't Fly Away tells the story of Aisha, a young African migrant living in Cairo. The film follows her journey within the African migrant community and the challenges she faces while working in the healthcare sector. The film stars Pollyanna Simon, Ziad Zaza, Emad Ghoneim, and Mamdouh Saleh, and is produced by Sawsan Youssef. 2. Namir Abdel Messeeh and Ali El Arabi – The Life After Siham (ACID Cannes Official Selection) The second notable Egyptian entry is the documentary The Life After Siham, written and directed by Namir Abdel Messeeh. It has been selected for the official competition of the ACID Cannes section—one of the festival's parallel programs. Established 33 years ago, ACID is known for its artistically curated selections by leading filmmakers from around the world. The film is produced by Ambient Light, a company founded by Egyptian director and producer Ali El Arabi. Told in the first person, the film follows Namir's emotional journey as he confronts grief after the loss of his mother. Spanning more than ten years, the documentary traces his development as an artist, his struggle to accept loss, and his effort to transform pain into a cinematic tribute that honors his mother's memory and his family's legacy, while exploring a past marked by separation and exile.
