Hend Sohail’s A PROMISE TO THE SEA to world premiere at São Paulo International Short Film Festival

release date August 13 2024

Hend Sohail’s Egyptian short drama A PROMISE TO THE SEA is set to hold its world premiere at the 35th São Paulo International Short Film Festival, scheduled to take place from August 22nd to September 1st in Brazil.

The film follows Zain, who, after irrationally deciding to steal his mother’s corpse during the funeral preparations, recklessly drives far from his humble hometown and hits the highway, where he encounters a situation that will change his life forever.

In the lead-up to the film’s premiere, film director Sohail revealed what she wanted to achieve with A PROMISE TO THE SEA, saying, “Through this film, I want to tell the story of an extraordinary relationship between a son and his mother. When Zain loses his mother, he refuses to accept this closure and starts to think of another one, leading him to embark on a risky journey, during which he discovers that the world is much bigger than he had previously thought.”

Directed and co-written by Hend Sohail alongside Omar Zinhom, A PROMISE TO THE SEA stars Nabil Botros Talaan, is lensed by Mostafa El Kashef, edited by Samir Radwan, and produced by That’s A Wrap’s Nourhan Yasser and co-producers Younes Medhat, Mohammed Al-Omda, Ahmed El-Naggar, Dina Shokry, and Hussain Hamadi. Meanwhile, the film’s international sales are handled by MAD World, while its distribution and sales in the Arab-speaking world are handled by MAD Distribution.

Hend Sohail is an Egyptian director and editor who studied editing at the High Cinema Institute, where she assisted a number of notable directors on several short films and commercials.

After graduating, she worked as a director’s producer for esteemed commercial directors, enriching her skills further before pursuing her dream of becoming a director and working on small social media projects and commercials. A PROMISE TO THE SEA is her directorial debut.