Since its inaugural screening on September 25th, Christian Suhr’s Danish-Egyptian documentary LIGHT UPON LIGHT has been making waves at Zawya Cinema in Downtown Cairo.
 
The film’s initial screening was followed by a Q&A with Suhr and the film’s crew, and since then it has been selling out its screenings throughout October and getting praise and stellar reactions from audiences all over.
 
Due to its popularity and how in demand it is, the documentary is also set to have several screenings throughout the first week of November, with the screening schedule being as follows:
●     Wednesday, November 1st at 9:30 pm
●     Thursday, November 2nd at 7 pm
●     Friday, November 3rd at 4 pm
●     Saturday, November 4th at 7 pm
●     Monday, November 6th at 4 pm
●     Tuesday, November 7th at 9:30 pm
 
LIGHT UPON LIGHT follows a series of events that took place after an Egyptian friend one day gave Danish anthropologist Christian Suhr a good piece of advice: "Stop focusing on all the darkness in the world and look at the light instead."
 
Suhr then goes on a journey to Cairo along the Nile and into the desert to understand what light means to the people he meets along the way, through conversations and observations of breathtaking rituals, the light slowly breaks through and nuances the image of a religion that is often viewed with prejudice and reduced to simplistic clichés.
 
Starring Aya El-Hosseiny, Sonia Hassan, Maher Al-Sharnouby, and Magda Habshey the documentary held its world premiere in the Nordic Competition at the 19th edition of the Copenhagen International Documentary Film Festival (CPH:DOX).
 
The film’s crew additionally gave master classes at the EthnoKino Film Festival and Freiburger Filmforum to discuss the film's subject matter. Several conferences and universities, including the American Academy of Religion, Mind & Life Europe, and the Middle East Studies Association, also hosted panel discussions and debates around the film.
LIGHT UPON LIGHT was co-written and co-edited with Muhammad Mustapha, lensed by Amira Mortada alongside Muhammad Mustapha and Christian Suhr, and produced by Hala Lotfy with Hassala Films.
 
The film opened at the Athens Ethnographic Film Festival, competed in the Cairo International Film Festival's International Critics’ Week, and featured at festivals such as the Jean Rouch International Film Festival, where it received a Special Mention at the festival’s Immersive Filmmaking Competition.
 
It also featured in festivals such as the Ethnocineca in Vienna, the International Ethnographic Film Festival of Quebec, the NAFA Film Festival, and the Arabian Nights Film Festival in Copenhagen.
Additionally, LIGHT UPON LIGHT recently screened at the ninth edition of the Tripoli Film Festival in Lebanon as part of the festival’s Documentary Competition.
 
A filmmaker and professor of anthropology at Aarhus University, Denmark, Christian Suhr's collaboration with the Cairo-based film collective Hassala Films started in 2014, with LIGHT UPON LIGHT being their first film together. Suhr's previous work focused on psychiatry, religious healing, and cultural exchange in Denmark and Papua New Guinea.
 
He is the author and director of the award-winning film and book DESCENDING WITH ANGELS, the director of NGAT IS DEAD and UNITY THROUGH CULTURE, and the editor of the books TRANSCULTURAL MONTAGE and WHEN THE MEDIA SETS THE AGENDA.
 
As a teacher, Suhr also initiated and coordinated the Visual Anthropology Program at Aarhus University between 2013 and 2021. His current work focuses on the experience and cultivation of love in religious practice.