THE STORY – Aisha is a 26-year-old Sudanese caregiver living in a neighbourhood in the heart of Cairo where she witnesses the tension between her fellow African migrants and local gangs. Stuck between an undefined relationship with a young Egyptian cook, a gangster that blackmails her into an unethical deal in exchange for safety, and a new house she’s assigned to work in, Aisha struggles to cope with her fears and lost battles, causing her dreams to cross with reality and leading her to an impasse.
THE CAST – Buliana Simon, Ziad Zaza, Mamdouh Saleh, Emad Ghoniem, Maya Mohamed & Mohamed Abd Elhady
THE TEAM – Morad Mostafa (Director/Writer), Sawsan Yusuf (Co-Writer) & Mohamed Abdelqader (Co-Writer)
THE RUNNING TIME – 121 Minutes
In “Aisha Can’t Fly Away,” director Morad Mostafa crafts a quiet storm of a film – a slow-burning, relentless elegy to the women who live in the margins and walk among us unseen. Centered around Aisha, a 26-year-old Sudanese migrant trying to survive in Cairo’s unforgiving Ain Shams neighborhood, the film immediately submerges us into her world, not through dramatic exposition, but by simply following her. We meet Aisha as the camera trails behind her like a shadow while she boards one crowded bus after another. The city roars around her with all its chaos and indifference, almost loud enough to drown her out. But she never speaks much anyway. And yet, she tells us everything.
In her acting debut, fashion model Buliana Simon delivers a haunting performance. She communicates so much with her eyes alone that this could be a silent film and we would be able to understand everything. Aisha is quiet, restrained, but never blank. She is a woman who has learned that silence is survival, yet her silence is deafening. She is a ghost in her own life, passing between homes as a caregiver, serving Egypt’s elderly while barely holding onto her own humanity. The homes she cleans are symbols of a wealth she’ll never attain, each visit reminding her of what she’ll never have. Her own apartment, dimly lit and precariously “rented” from a local gangster, stands in stark contrast. The security she’s promised comes with a cost: she is forced to give a copy of an employer’s key to the gang, enabling a break-in. It’s a choice that’s both horrifying and understandable, underlining the systems of exploitation that take advantage of those seeking a better life.
“Aisha Can’t Fly Away” is a slow, dreamlike descent into a waking nightmare. Mostafa blends magical realism with naturalism and fantastical elements, transforming Aisha’s quiet suffering into something almost mythic. When her mouth starts to bleed and her skin erupts in strange, unexplained rashes, it becomes clear that her internal torment is manifesting physically. The imagery leans toward the body horror genre, drawing unsettling parallels between her psychological disintegration and a fantastical metamorphosis. The recurring ostrich symbolism – a bird Aisha dreams of frequently – evokes the metaphor of marginalized women who are taught to bury their heads in the sand, to stay silent, and not to fly, even if they once dreamed they could. It echoes Laila Aboulela’s short story, “The Ostrich,” where Sudanese women are denied the right to speak, decide, or live freely.
The film’s pacing is glacial, but its emotional weight is suffocating. Every frame feels deliberate, every scene soaked in quiet dread. However, there are moments of warmth; dinners shared with Abdoun, her Egyptian chef friend who offers her kindness, and brief moments of laughter among other Sudanese women in the neighborhood. But these scenes only make the bleakness that follows feel more suffocating. The film hints at release, even transformation, but never lets us see that. There is no catharsis, only survival.
One of the most arresting scenes involves Aisha donning a Batman mask while playing hide-and-seek with the grandson of a predatory old man that she cares for. The image is absurd and profound: a silent, oppressed caregiver forced into the guise of a hero in someone else’s fantasy. It’s a moment that could have served as a turning point, but instead it drifts away like a dream forgotten after waking. Mostafa flirts with surrealism but never lets the fantasy fully take flight – perhaps because, like Aisha, it’s never allowed to. Just when you expect Aisha to scream or to fight back, she doesn’t. And maybe that’s the point. This isn’t a film about triumph – it’s about endurance. It’s about living in a world where your dreams are crushed daily and your body becomes a battleground. It’s about how invisible wars – of racism, patriarchy, and economic violence – leave scars just as deep as bullets.
Aisha, just like the ostrich, may not be able to fly away, but she is still here. And in a world like hers, that in itself is defiance. Mostafa’s film is a slow, somber, sometimes suffocating meditation on the life of an invisible woman. Not everyone will have the patience for “Aisha Can’t Fly Away,” but those who do will find a woman who bleeds, dreams, breaks, and yet somehow endures.
