The Square
Feature length film Completed 2013
Director
Jehane Noujaim
Doc Society helped with
Production
Went to Good Pitch
Runtime: 104 minutes
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The Square is an intimate observational documentary that tells an immersive story of the ongoing struggle of the Egyptian Revolution. Beginning in the tents of Tahrir Square in the days leading up to the fall of Mubarak and the departure of the international news cameras, we follow our characters on their life-changing journey through the euphoria of victory into the uncertainties and dangers of the current 'transitional period' under military rule, where everything they fought for is now under threat. They soon find the transformative power of their youthful idealism, which had toppled a dictator and inspired the world, confronting an embedded military power structure that has been ruling the country for over 60 years and a rising radical Islamic political power hijacking their revolution. While much of the world saw that the Egyptian Revolution had been won in February 2011, our characters had only just begun their struggle for the transformation of their nation.
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Crew
Jehane Noujaim
Director
Jehane Noujaim is the filmmaker behind the celebrated films Control Room and Startup.com. She is the founder of Pangea Day, a four-hour live global broadcast that briefly united 1800 locations around the world through the power of film.
Noujaim was raised in Cairo, Egypt where she began her career as a photographer. Following a BA in Film and Philosophy at Harvard, she was awarded the Gardiner fellowship under which she directed Mokattam (1998). Noujaim went on to produce and direct Startup.com in association with Pennebaker Hegedus Films and Control Room (2004).
She has worked in both the Middle East and the U.S. as a co-director on Egypt: We Are Watching You, which premiered as one of the ten films in the Why Democracy? series focusing on contemporary democracy around the globe and on Storm from the South.
She has worked as a cinematographer on: Born Rich, Only the Strong Survive, and Down from the Mountain. And as an Executive Producer: Encounter Point, and Budrus, (opening in theaters this year).
Noujaim is a Young Global Leader, won the TED Prize (2006), serves on the board of Just Vision (www.justvision.org) and lives and works between London, New York and Cairo.
