Important Dates

Cinema Africa returns in January for the final instalment of this year’s festival, beginning with Morad Mostafa’s Aisha Can’t Fly Away. 

17.01.2027, 8 pm, Cineplex Bayreuth

Morad Mostafa: Aisha Can’t Fly Away

Aisha is a 26-year-old Sudanese caregiver living in Cairo’s Ain Shams neighbourhood, where tensions between African migrants and local gangs shape everyday life. Caught between an uncertain relationship with a young Egyptian cook, a gangster who blackmails her in exchange for protection, and the demands of a new household where she works, Aisha struggles with fear, isolation and the feeling that there may be no way out. As the pressure around her grows, dreams and reality increasingly begin to merge.  

With Aisha Can’t Fly Away, Egyptian filmmaker Morad Mostafa looks beyond migration itself to questions of belonging, visibility and survival. For Mostafa, Aisha’s story is about “the sense of belonging and the need to be seen”: a young woman living under constant pressure who nevertheless continues to dream of a different life.

MORAD MOSTAFA is an Egyptian filmmaker who began his career as an assistant director and is an alumnus of Berlinale Talents, Durban Talents, the Locarno Academy and Cannes Cinéfondation. His four short films Henet Ward, What We Don’t Know About Mariam, Khadiga and I Promise You Paradise have screened at festivals around the world. Aisha Can’t Fly Away is his first feature film and was selected for the Un Certain Regard section of the Cannes Film Festival.