Out on the Street | Barra Fel Share' - Film Review

Abstract

In a makeshift rooftop studio overlooking the city of Cairo nine men gather for a workshop in which they enact, according to the film’s makers, “confrontations of everyday life, with the police and at the workplace” (Metwaly & Rizk). Opening up with a trance-like segment of grainy footage of a gritty, dilapidated space which we are led to believe might be a disaffected factory, Out on the Street is a non-linear collection of scenes shot in the rooftop workshop, a series of fictionalized performances (or re-enactments of common scenarios), and footage shot on a cellphone by one of the workers who intends to use it as evidence in a court case against his employer.