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Joseph Fahim

Tomatometer-approved critic
Biography:

Joseph Fahim is an Egyptian film critic and programmer. He is the Arab delegate of the Karlovy Vary Film Festival, the 2018 curator of London's Safar Film Fest, a former member of Berlin Critics' Week and the ex director of programming of the Cairo International Film Festival. His film programs have been showcased in Europe, the Middle East and U.S. He co-authored various books on Arab cinema and has written for numerous outlets around the world, including Middle East Eye, Middle East Institute, BBC, Mubi, Verite, Al Monitor, Al Jazeera, and The National (U.A.E.). To date, his writings have been translated into six different languages.

Reviews

Movies 온라인카지노추천 Shows
1001 Frames (2025) “1001 Frames never transcends its narrow experimental parameters, never managing to build tension due to the rigidity of a static structure that grows tiresome by the halfway mark. ” – Middle East Eye Mar 23, 2025 Full Review No Beast. So Fierce. (2025) “With no socio-political context provided, the self-congratulatory stylisation of No Beast quickly runs thin as it sluggishly salivates for relevance in its waning moments. ” – Middle East Eye Mar 23, 2025 Full Review Khartoum (2025) 92% “Realised with remarkable sensitivity and shot with distinctive lyricism, Khartoum never solely relies on its urgent politics to lift the picture up; its mature, striking artistry is inseparable from its unsentimental humanism. ” – Middle East Eye Mar 23, 2025 Full Review Yunan (2025) “Yunan is self-involved, stubbornly insular narration, leading to a highly problematic standardisation and flattening of Arab exile – a complex experience shaped by class, politics, and disparate psychological factors. ” – Middle East Eye Mar 23, 2025 Full Review Yalla Parkour (2024) 80% “Zuaiter fails to convey the full essence of Ahmad. Zuaiter’s hagiographic, one-dimensional presentation of her protagonist leaves off his loves, his weaknesses, his relationships, and even his political convictions. ” – Middle East Eye Mar 11, 2025 Full Review The Brutalist (2024) 93% “The Brutalist is the story of modern America’s derision of art, of any creative endeavour that has no immediate monetary value. America has no place for a man of Laszlo’s ilk, for defiant art that refuses to abide by the rules of the market. ” – Middle East Eye Feb 3, 2025 Full Review To a Land Unknown (2024) 97% “The biggest feat of Fleifel’s humanistic tour de force is the agency it gives his young men to be whoever they are: hustling junkies, headstrong hoodlums forever thrust in a quixotic quest to find a home they can never attain” – Middle East Eye Dec 28, 2024 Full Review A Fidai Film (2024) “A Fidai Film is a dense if playful picture that questions our belief in the veracity of the image while exposing the hazardous role of narration: a simultaneous act of disruption and self-affirmation against time, violent depletion, and fate. ” – Middle East Eye Dec 28, 2024 Full Review From Ground Zero (2024) 98% “The splatter of optimism, of perseverance, fashioned by the Gazan women filmmakers as a form of dignified resistance makes for some of the most powerful moments in any film this year, challenging what cinema is and what it could be. ” – Middle East Eye Dec 28, 2024 Full Review East of Noon (2024) 100% “Laced with disparate influences – from the colloquial poetry of Salah Jahin and Egyptian musicals of the 1940s, to the use of political symbolism in the Brazilian Cinema Novo, East of Noon is the year’s most formally inventive Middle Eastern picture.” – Middle East Eye Dec 28, 2024 Full Review Perfumed with Mint (2024) “Hamdy's film flouts the rules of classical storytelling associated with Egyptian cinema, conjuring up a disorienting mist of a film about fear, trauma, and the overbearing stupefaction that has taken over the broken generation of the 2011 Revolution. ” – Middle East Eye Dec 28, 2024 Full Review The Bibi Files (2024) 95% “The Bibi Files is not just an expertly made investigation of Israel's most notorious head of state: it’s a Macbeth-like fable of a man punch-drunk on blind ambition; a penetrating study of a man corrupted and empowered by his violent addiction to power. ” – Middle East Eye Dec 28, 2024 Full Review Mond (2024) “The occasional thrills offered by the genre tropes cannot conceal the predictability of the material at hand. Mond is yet another account of young bright girls oppressed by their controlling family for reasons that never manage to convince. ” – Middle East Eye Dec 28, 2024 Full Review Agora (2024) “The political subtext of the film – Tunisia’s incapacity in dealing with its violent past and the enduring memory of the persecuted victims – is more pronounced than Slim’s previous outings, but a weak third act does ultimately harm the picture. ” – Middle East Eye Dec 28, 2024 Full Review The Brink of Dreams (2024) “Moments of projected vulnerability are calculated if not insincere, and the ambience of the film habitually feels like a campfire around which the girls gather to commemorate their friendship. ” – Middle East Eye May 28, 2024 Full Review Shikun (2024) “As earnest as Gitai's intentions are, his politics are didactic, bluntly conveyed with heavy-handed symbolism, unbearably theatrical monologues and stilled scene arrangements devoid of artiness. ” – Middle East Eye Mar 17, 2024 Full Review Who Do I Belong To (2024) 69% “Joobeur dexterously coalesces different genres and different narratives in a gorgeously-shot picture, realised in earthy colours, that marry the macabre and the supernatural with the dreaminess of Terrence Malick. ” – Middle East Eye Mar 17, 2024 Full Review My Favourite Cake (2024) 100% “Moghaddam and Sanaeeha's tender tale is both timeless and urgent; universal yet very specific; an irresistibly charming, disarmingly touching meditation on ageing, the cruel passage of time and the irrepressible need for connection. ” – Middle East Eye Mar 17, 2024 Full Review No Other Land (2024) 100% “Never descending into miserabilism, the directors manage to find moments of humanity, particularly in the budding friendship between Basel and Arabic-speaking Yuval. This bond stands in contrast to the otherwise stark reality of Masafer Yatta. ” – Middle East Eye Mar 17, 2024 Full Review In the Blind Spot (2023) “Gripping from start to finish, Polat’s finest film to date serves as an exploration of the violence unleashed by the Erdogan regime on the Kurdish population; a snapshot of a lawless place governed by xenophobia and paranoia. ” – Middle East Eye Dec 25, 2023 Full Review Behind the Mountains (2023) 67% “At once, Behind the Mountains is a father-son story, a hostage thriller and a supernatural dramedy - different genres lumped together without harmony. It’s a film that wants to be multiple things but ends up being none. ” – Middle East Eye Nov 18, 2023 Full Review Backstage (2023) “This is a feast for the senses.Its subtle politics,however,is its strongest asset,exploring female sexuality and self-autonomy; gender fluidity and polyamory;and the schism between the free nature of art and the restrictive reality of Arab societies. ” – Middle East Eye Nov 18, 2023 Full Review The Sun Will Rise (2023) “As the movie progresses, the barrage of testimonies grows increasingly redundant, numbing the initial shock. The execution is too heavy-handed, self-important and attention seeking, so much so that it’s difficult not to question the method's intention. ” – Middle East Eye Nov 18, 2023 Full Review Dormitory (2023) “Yurt is a snapshot of a country in transition: a country divided between traditional secularism of the founding father of modern Turkey, Ataturk, and the rising power of religion, embodied by Erdogan, whose AK Party would win power a few years later. ” – Middle East Eye Nov 18, 2023 Full Review Hesitation Wound (2023) 82% “Undeniably engaging, Hesitation Wound nonetheless treads familiar grounds, be it in its rudimentary treatment of class or in its depiction of the moral greyness that defines urban Turkish life. ” – Middle East Eye Nov 18, 2023 Full Review
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