Summary

Egyptian Jeanne d’Arc’ is a creative documentary that explores issues of female emancipation in ‘post post-revolutionary’ Egypt. Beginning with the return journey to Cairo of a filmmaker long absent from her own country, the film weaves a series of intimate portraits composed of interviews, poetic voice-over and dance; exploring themes of oppression, guilt and faith with Egyptian women, many of them artists. Reflecting on Carl Theodor Dreyer’s 1928 film ‘The Passion of Joan of Arc’ – in which the female figure is martyred by the patriarchal forces surrounding her – ‘Jeanne’ is a contemporary commentary that melds documentary and dance with poetic storytelling and myth to arrive at the core of the filmmaker’s enquiries into the circumstances of women in Egypt today.