In the Last Days of the City

Shot in 2009 and released in 2016, In the Last Days of the City is a personal portrait of Cairo during the fall of the Mubarak regime. Structured as a film within a film, the protagonist is filmmaker Khalid (Khalid Abdalla), who experiences the profound sadness of changes on the city and in his personal relationships. “Largely fiction with nonfiction elements, Last Days benefits from time: Most instant responses to the Revolution now seem hopelessly dated, but Said’s work, lensed before the uprising, takes full, intelligent advantage of hindsight . . . The result is a city requiem rather than a city symphony (Jay Weissberg, Variety).