Sameh Alaa

Writer / Director

Egypt

Sameh Alaa is a writer-director from Egypt. He holds a bachelor’s degree in German Literature from Cairo University.
He is based between Cairo & Brussels. He later went on to do his Master’s Degree in EICAR Film School in Paris. Sameh is also an alumnus of the Berlinale Talent Campus in Durban, and European short film pitch. His short film FIFTEEN was screened in the official selection of the 42nd Toronto International Film Festival. The film went on to win awards worldwide. AYA: (THE GIRL WHO JUMPED FROM THE WINDOW) is his feature debut.

Project

Aya: (the girl who jumped from the window)

HATEM is a 30-year-old limestone quarry worker living with his sister AYA (15) and their grandmother DAWLAT in a remote Egyptian village. HATEM provides for his little sister’s education and takes care of his paralysed grandmother.
One day after work, HATEM starts to browse some online porn sites and discovers a video of his sister. Unknown to her, she was filmed by a voyeur during an intimate moment with a guy in the school back yard. The guy’s face is unrecognisable.
HATEM locks his sister in the house allowing her out only under his or their grandmother’s supervision. That night he forces her take him to the guy with her in the video. He kidnaps him and throws his body in the river while his sister screams.
He takes his sister home and locks her in her room. The next day he discovers his sister has escaped, jumping from the 4th floor.
But witnesses say that she got up, ran away bleeding and disappeared.
HATEM goes on a long journey relentlessly searching for his sister AYA.