‘Aisha Can’t Fly Away’ review: A Cairo careworker finds herself caught up in local gang tensions

Dir: Morad Mostafa. Egypt/Sudan/Tunisia/Saudi Arabia/Qatar/France/Germany. 2025. 131mins

A good life is rendered unattainable by the unconscionable calls for of others in Aisha Can’t Fly Away, Morad Mostafa’s bold, slow-burning first characteristic which charts the moral dilemmas going through a Sudanese careworker in Cairo. The plight of a person reveals an even bigger image of exploitation, battle and compliance, though Mostafa’s method of blending genres and incorporating parts of magic realism doesn’t fully gel. The topic and the spectacular central efficiency from Buliana Simon ought to generate additional pageant curiosity following the movie’s bow in Cannes Un Sure Regard.

An even bigger image of exploitation, battle and compliance

Mostafa was chosen as certainly one of Display screen’s Arab Stars Of Tomorrow in 2023, the yr his quick I Promise You Paradise performed Cannes Critics Week. He units Aisha Can’t Fly Away in his house neighbourhood of Ain Shans in japanese Cairo the place, searching from her spartan condo, 26-year-old Aisha (Buliana Simon) is a witness to the violence surrounding her as native gangs vie for management. The charismatic Zuka (Egyptian rapper Ziad Zaza) presently guidelines the roost, dealing medication, rallying his troops and meting out punishment to anybody who intrudes on his territory. There is a component of Metropolis Of God (2002) within the warren of streets and the sensation of a lawless frontier. 

Exterior her condo, Aisha appears to be in perpetual movement. Cinematographer Mostafa El Kashef (The Village Subsequent To Paradise) makes use of the digicam to stalk her hurried passage via the chaos of the neighbourhood, her journeys previous markets and on public transport as she heads to her newest consumer. Her life is certainly one of toil as she cooks, cleans, prepares meals or administers medication. She faces the world with a solemn look. Her eyes see the whole lot however reveal nothing. Solely a phonecall house prompts a uncommon smile of happiness.

The shadowy streets and menace of menace create a noir-like high quality as Aisha walks house at evening. There’s additionally an echo of Rear Window in the best way she watches occasions between the wood slats that cowl her window. It turns into inevitable that Zuka requires cost for her housing and security – offering a replica key to the flats of her shoppers is a request that Aisha feels unable to disclaim. She is an harmless caught in an internet, however Zuka isn’t the one one who desires one thing from Aisha. Her newest consumer is the aged, wheelchair certain Mr. Khalil (Mamdouh Saleh) who expects her to are inclined to his sexual wants. Complaints to her employer are dismissed as she is suggested to “think about it like a nursing service”.

Simon makes Aisha a resolute, stoical determine as she absorbs the whole lot that occurs, one thing Mostafa emphasises with prolonged close-ups of her emotionless face. Mostafa supplies a wider political context in background information bulletins and the continued gang wars. Aisha finds some escape in a friendship with the defiant Tawfiqah (Maya Mohamed) and in a modest bond with chef Abdoun (Emad Ghoniem) who, like her, can’t name his life his personal. There’s additionally a flicker of reference to Zuka that’s underdeveloped.

Mostafa provides a magic realist factor to an already busy narrative with common appearances of an ostrich. Dream and fantasy sequences that includes the creature strike an odd word that grows as Aisha begins to note a wierd rash on her stomach and unsettling adjustments in her bodily look. Is she mimicking the ostrich by hiding her head within the sand? Aisha Can’t Fly Away struggles to do justice to each side of Aisha’s story, however is at its greatest as an involving human drama specializing in the plight of the susceptible caught in a world that seeks to use them.