Aisha Can’t Fly Away (Cannes Film Festival)
The underworld of African migrant society in Cairo and the tension between the different groups as witnessed by Aisha, a Somali caregiver.
Aisha Can’t Fly Away, Morad Mostafa
Aisha Can't Fly Away (2025) is the directorial debut of Egyptian filmmaker, Morad Mostafa. The film follows Aisha (Buliana Simon Arop) a Sudanese refugee living in a neighbourhood in Cairo with a large African migrant community. A community that is at odds with the authorities and often gets caught in the crossfire between warring gangs. Aisha does her best to keep in good standing with those around her, as she tries to earn a living as a carer to the elderly. A job that is incredibly taxing on her both physically and mentally.
Aisha Can’t Fly Away creates an intense and miserable experience for the audience, constantly moving Aisha quietly through Cairo in what feels like an endlessly escalating series of unfortunate events that slowly compounds in its abject cruelty towards Aisha. This cruelty begins to push beyond substance, bordering egregious. The slow torture of our lead character paired with the glacial pace creates an experience that becomes needlessly exhausting, punishing both the audience and Aisha. There are some nice moments of respite throughout that makes one optimistic at the possibility of some interiority, however those scenes feel too far and few apart. Namely the scenes spent in the restaurant kitchen with Aisha’s chef friend. However, Mostafa manages to even inject these scenes over time with a sense of needless cruelty before removing it all together.
This starts to beg the question at the heart of the film, what exactly is all of this cruelty in service of? Aisha Can’t Fly Away introduces itself as a character study but, at every opportunity, underwrites its protagonist. We don't really get a good sense of who Aisha is outside of an absorbing performance from Buliana Simon. Our mostly silent protagonist doesn't really get a lot to do or say as Mostafa reduces her into a vehicle for violence. An attempt at creating something more substantial with attempts at magical realism and body horror - punctuated by a motif of an ostrich, linking Aisha to that of a flightless bird unable to escape - feels obvious and never goes anywhere. What could've been something to enhance the thematic texture of the film ends up once again being reduced frustratingly to cheap thrills.
“Aisha Can’t Fly Away introduces itself as a character study but, at every opportunity, underwrites its protagonist.”
The film builds towards a gang war shootout sequence that feels incredibly clunky - the camera awkwardly jitters around, the bullets and gun effects look odd and the sound feels overdone - and reminiscent of the film form until then, leaving a lot to be desired. It’s restrained in a way that feels at odds with the rest of the film and just rings as dull. However, the most harrowing element of the film is its incredibly graphic tasteless depiction of sexual assault. The sexual violence throughout the film is done in a manner that just rings as blatant exploitation, another tool used to further punish both the audience and protagonist.
Overall, Aisha Can't Fly Away feels like a bland attempt at a character study, with a solid lead performance at its helm but writing that lacks any insight. The structure form doesn't do anything special in the slightest and Mostafa continually confuses graphic moments of shock value and violence for character beats, culminating in an experience that feels drab and torturous.
Release Date: May 20th, 2025 (Cannes)
Directed by Morad Mostafa
Written by Morad Mostafa, Mohammad Abdulqader, Sawsan Yusuf
Produced by Sawsan Yusuf
Starring Buliana Simon, Ziad Zaza, Mamdouh Saleh, Emad Ghoniem, Maya Mohamed, Mohamed Abd El-Hady
Cinematography by Mostafa El Kashef
Runtime: 123 minutes.