Egyptian documentary shows young women hovering on 'The Brink of Dreams'

Majda, Monika and Heidi are part of the Panorama theatre troupe in the village of El Barsha, a small Coptic Christian community in the south of Egypt. As they devise and perform plays in the street, filmmakers Nada Riyadh and Ayman El Amir follow the young women, who are negotiating the moment between adolescence and adulthood, contemplating their destinies and their dreams. “The Brink of Dreams” won the L’Œil d’or prize at the Cannes Film Festival. We speak to director Nada Riyadh about the power of female solidarity, how street theatre shifted mentalities in villages and the importance of cultural role models for women and girls in Egypt.