At Titi's Balcony
Yasmina Benari
2016 - 79 min - Video 720p/HDV & Flat 2K - Couleur et Noir & Blanc - France

Titi, an Egyptian communist of Jewish origin, was born in Cairo 86 years ago. Since his childhood, he has lived in the same apartment with his grandparents and his parents. A long balcony, leading onto Tahrir Square, borders this apartment. This suspended space is the witness of his family history but also that of his country, Egypt.
"At the age of five, I discovered for the first time this very long open-air balcony. In the distance, we could see the museum of Cairo and the Nile furrowed with sailboats. "
Since an early age, he was photographed on the balcony, then with his friends as he entered the communist movement, later with his wife and children and then his grandchildren. At his balcony, Titi has seen the anti-aircraft defence radars during the Second World War, followed by the Cairo fire of 1952; A year before being sentenced to 11 years in prison for his opposition to the regime. On January 25, 2011, Titi hears the sounds of riots and goes out to his balcony to see "what is happening". He is 81 years old, and after having devoted his life to his country, he has to face the obvious: he has become the observer of a reality he can only observe at a distance, from his balcony.
Through archive sequences and current images, the film mixes past and present as a continuous circle, with at its core, the balcony.
Filmed over a period of two years, in the midst of a revolutionary outburst, the film questions the notion of political engagement at the scale of history.
"Soon I will leave this life but the balcony will remain, with other actors...”