World Premiere and Official Competition Entr for Factory Girl at Dubai International Film Festival

First Feature Produced by Mohamed Samir with the Support of 7 International Entities

World Premiere and Official Competition Entr for Factory Girl at Dubai International Film Festival

Dubai International Film Festival announced the participation of Mohamed Khan's new feature Factory Girl in the Muhr Arab Feature competition in the festival's 10th edition which will take place from December 6th to December 14th, 2013.

Directed by Mohamed Khan and written by Wessam Soliman, Factory Girl is Mohamed Samir's first feature production through DayDream Art Production. The film is an untraditional production experience in the Egyptian filmmaking scene. On his new film, Samir commented, "The main challenge was that my small production house, compared to other major entities, was able to produce a film by Mohamed Khan, one of the most prominent filmmakers in the Arab world. The film is a huge feat in Egyptian filmmaking, not only for having Khan as the director, but also for the tremendous effect this experience has had on the film's team and Egyptian filmmakers in general, proving that nothing is impossible when you believe whole heartedly in a project, no matter how many hardships you face along the way, and they were many during this production".

Samir considers Factory Girl is one of the few Egyptian and Arab productions that received financial support from a big number of international filmmaking entities, with a total of seven entities supporting the film including: Dubai International Film Festival's Enjaaz Fund, Abu Dhabi Film Festival's Sanad Fund, GIZ institution, Global Film Initiative, Women in Film Foundation, Netflix and the Ministry of Culture's Filmmaking Fund.

Samir has formed a different kind of partnership, co-producing Factory Girl with WIKA for Film Production and Distribution (Harag w' Marag) and Middlewest Films (In Search of Oil and Sand and Villa 69). As the new aspiring generation of filmmakers seeks to create new film projects able to become successful cinema hits apart from the traditional formula of the local market which involves either huge budgets or the participation of popular film stars. In this respect Samir stated, "the local market should embrace all new forms of filmmaking, since both the Egyptian and international film scene has proved that the success, either commercial or critical, of a film doesn't solely depend on big budgets and famous film stars, and Factory Girl has all the makings of film that will compete in the box office".

Starring Yasmin Raeis, Hany Adel, Salwa Kahttab, Salwa Mohamed Ali, in addition to a number of new talents, Factory Girl tells the story Hiyam, a young factory worker, lives in a lower-middle-class neighbourhood, along with her co-workers. She is clearly under the spell of Salah, the factory's new supervisor, who has expressed his admiration for her. She believes love can transcend the class differences between them. However, when a pregnancy test is discovered in the factory premises, her immediate family and close friends accuse her of sinning. Hiyam decides not to defend herself and pays an enormous price in a society that fails to accept independent women. Factory Girl examines the changes that take place in her life over the four seasons of the year. From falling in love to facing heartbreak, her life comes around full circle by the end of the year.