MAD Solutions’ newly acquired LIGHT UPON LIGHT to compete in 2022 Cairo Int’l Film Festival

release date November 13 2022

MAD Solutions’ newly acquired documentary LIGHT UPON LIGHT, directed by Christian Suhr and produced by Hala Lotfy, will be competing in the 2022 Cairo International Film Festival’s International Critics Week Competition, upping MAD Solutions’ slate in the 44th CIFF to ten titles, with the festival set to run from November 13th to 22nd.

LIGHT UPON LIGHT will screen at the following times: 20th November at 15:30 at the Small Theatre (followed by a Q&A), 21st November at 12:30pm at the Hanager Theatre, and 22nd November at 15:00 at Zamalek Cinema.

Set to hold its international and Arab premiere in Cairo, LIGHT UPON LIGHT – a Danish-Egyptian co-production – had its world premiere at the 19th edition of the Copenhagen International Documentary Film Festival (CPH:DOX) in March 2022. MAD Solutions is managing the film’s distribution across the Arab world.

Helmed by Danish filmmaker and anthropologist Christian Suhr, LIGHT UPON LIGHT revolves around a philosophical field trip from Cairo along the Nile into the desert in search of what light means as a religious concept in post-revolutionary Egypt.

The film’s inspiration came from one of Suhr’s friends, who urged him one night in Cairo in 2014 to “Stop focusing on the darkness and focus on the light.” Through conversations on and observations of breathtaking Muslim rituals, the light slowly breaks through and nuances the image of a religion and a political culture often viewed with prejudice and reduced to simplistic clichés.

Produced by Egyptian filmmaker Hala Lotfy through Hassala Films, LIGHT UPON LIGHT is also supported by the Danish-Egyptian Dialogue Initiative (DEDI). Lotfy is known for her feature debut COMING FORTH BY DAY, which was featured at the 2013 Berlinale and later awarded the prestigious Katrin Cartlidge Foundation Award – which is given to new filmmakers – at the Sarajevo Film Festival. In 2011, she founded the production collective Hassala Films to support young filmmakers and artists.

MAD Solutions has ten total films participating in the 2022 CIFF, comprising of three feature fiction films, one feature documentary, four shorts, and two projects. Alongside LIGHT UPON LIGHT, MAD Solutions is representing Firas Khoury’s ALAM, Roschdy Zem’s OUR TIES, and Rachid Hami’s FOR MY COUNTRY (POUR LA FRANCE), in addition to Mohamed Fawi’s BUZZ, Ward Kayyal’s HAMZA: CHASING THE GHOST CHASING ME, Dessil Mekhtigian’s FROM THE WORK OF THE DEVIL, and Nejib Kthiri’s TRINOU, the four of which will be competing in the Official Short Film Competition.

Additionally, two projects from MAD Solutions set to compete at Cairo Film Connection, those being Amjad Al-Rasheed’s INSHALLAH A BOY and Mehdi Hmili’s THE SEASONS OF JANNET.

The CIFF is one of the oldest and most celebrated festivals in the Arab world and Africa. It is the only festival in the Arab and African region to be accorded a Category A status by the International Federation of Film Producers Associations in Paris (FIAPF).