19/02/2025 - BERLINALE 2025: The Alexandria-based filmmaker breaks down his narrative debut, which was born of a fascination with industrial environments

(© Dario Caruso/Cineuropa)

Cineuropa chatted to Alexandria-based filmmaker Mohamed Rashad, whose narrative debut, The Settlement [+see also:
film review
interview: Mohamed Rashad
film profile], has screened in Perspectives, the Berlinale’s newly introduced competition for first films. Rashad’s movie was shot in Egypt and was born of a fascination with industrial environments. The director unpacks its most important elements for us.

Cineuropa: Your film was inspired by real events. I wonder if that deadly incident in the factory was a one-off case, or do these types of accidents happen more frequently and form part of a public debate in Egypt?
Mohamed Rashad: Actually, I'm not sure if it has happened many times or frequently. I think the first inspiration for the film was only in my mind: I liked the visuals of the industrial environment. All I had was this image of a guy who is working in the factory, but he doesn’t belong there. I don’t know why this image came to me so many times. Then, through a friend, I met a guy who told us a story about his father. He was a construction worker who died after falling from a great height. The company offered his position to his son, whom I met, but they asked him not to sue the firm. When I talked to him, I noticed his eyes when he told me about his feelings and how he was building his future on the death of his father. It was very sad, and I used it in my story. This was a guy who was working in a factory he didn’t belong to.

One of the film’s key themes is how Hossam grows up to be a man. Was this element, and also the relationship between him and his younger brother Maro, important to you?
Actually, yes, because my first full-length film was a documentary. It was about the relationship between a father and son. I think it’s an important topic for me, also in The Settlement. In my eyes, there are two “pairs” of fathers and sons: one is Hossam and his father, and the other is Hossam and Maro, his younger brother. Maro looks at Hossam as if he were his father, as if he replaced him in that position. I am not sure exactly why this issue is important to me, but I’ll try to discover the reason.

Maybe through making films… You cast non-professional actors in The Settlement. Why?
It’s probably, again, because of my documentary background. Another reason why I needed fresh faces is that I didn’t want the audience to see the actor playing the character, but rather just the character itself. I wanted to make the movie more natural. Also, I believed that there were two main characters – Hossam and Maro – and I wanted them to be in harmony. I knew I wouldn’t be able to find a professional actor who was 12 years old [like Maro].

Hossam meets a young woman at the factory, and for a moment, there seems to be hope that he will have a nice future. But it doesn’t happen after all. Why?
Hossam is trapped by his past, and he can’t change, no matter how hard he tries. No one wants to give him a second chance. He is a working-class man, and it’s a desperate life for all of them. They’re poor and live in tough conditions. Hossam is not a good son, not a good man, and not even a good brother, and people judge him for that. So, he thinks that it’s his destiny to keep on living like that.

Hossam and Maro’s mother is the most important woman in the film. She needs constant care from her son. Is her character symbolic of the fact that boys have no real support in this world?
No, she's not symbolic. There is a complicated relationship between her and Hossam. She is afraid that she will lose him again, so she doesn’t show him any feelings – Instead, all of her care and warmth go towards Maro.

An alternative to life at the factory is escaping to what is referred to as the “Bedouin Mountain”. Is this a real place, where men who have no other option go to spend the rest of their lives?
In the film, it’s a place where gangsters go to hide out. But it’s symbolic, rather than real.

What about Maro? Do you think there is a better future ahead of him?
The film ends with Maro thinking about his brother – that he has lost him, and before that, his father died, so he lost him, too. And at the same time, Hossam avenged their father, so maybe Maro doesn’t need to take revenge on anyone any more. Or maybe he knows that this is the only way of living. It could be either of these options.   

But do you believe that there is hope, or is there no hope?
No hope.