Cinema Without Borders: Miseries of migration Aisha Can't Fly Away

Morad Mostafa’s debut feature film, Aisha Can't Fly Away, is bound to remind Indian viewers of the Dibakar Banerjee segment, Star, in the 2013 anthology film, Bombay Talkies.

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The point of commonality is that both these films feature a flightless bird—an emu in Star and an ostrich in Aisha—as a significant presence, more so a symbol of the predicaments and deadlocks in their protagonists’ lives. Set in the heart of Cairo, Aisha Can't Fly Away spotlights groups of African migrant workers, specifically a Sudanese caregiver, Aisha (Buliana Simon). It’s a detailed, albeit conventional portrayal of immigrant lives in all their dreary, dismal, ugly reality. The stray rays of sunshine are the occasional meetups of the women workers, the joy of their song-and-dance.

The Arab language, Egypt-Sudan-Tunisia-Saudi Arabia-Qatar-France-Germany co-production was platformed in the Un Certain Regard section of the Cannes Film Festival 2025.