Alaa Eddine Aljem’s debut feature
The Unknown Saint has come out out of nowhere to inject Arab cinema with a breath of fresh air.
It’s that rarest of beasts: a smart, side-splitting Arab comedy tackling collective faith, the presiding craving for a saviour and the primal necessity of finding meaning, or rather conjuring up one.
Film director Alaa Eddine Aljem (Unifrance)
The underlying sentiment is simple, as Aljem explains: “We, as a nation, need something to believe in. We cannot be just individuals. We need something to unite us; something to push us collectively to go forward…even if it’s fake.”