The social thriller is Mohamed Rashad's first narrative feature, following his 2016 documentary 'Little Eagles'.
MAD World, the film sales division of pan-Arab indie studio MAD Solutions, has secured worldwide rights to The Settlement, Mohamed Rashad’s Egyptian working-class thriller intertwined with family drama. The film is set to make its world premiere at the Berlin International Film Festival (February 13–25) in the newly introduced competition section, Perspectives.
Rashad’s feature narrative debut, The Settlement, marks his return to the Berlinale, where it previously received funding from the Berlinale World Cinema Fund in 2022. The filmmaker is known for his 2016 documentary Little Eagles, which delved into 1970s leftist activism in Egypt and the role his family played in the movement. Little Eagles won the Best Documentary Award at the Malmö Arab Film Festival.
Inspired by real events, The Settlement follows two brothers, 23-year-old troublemaker Hossam and his 12-year-old sibling Maro, who live in a marginalised Alexandria community. After their father dies in a workplace accident, the local factory offers them jobs as compensation, urging them to forgo legal action. However, as the brothers adapt to their new roles, they begin to question whether their father’s death was truly accidental.
The story draws on Rashad’s personal connection to the industrial world of Alexandria, where his father worked in textile factories for over 40 years. Rashad was further inspired by a story shared by a law school graduate whose father died on a construction site, and the company coerced the family into waiving their legal rights in exchange for employment. Through The Settlement, Rashad sheds light on unsafe working conditions in factories and questionable practices by some management teams.
The film features emerging actors Adham Shoukry, Ziad Islam, Hajar Omar, Mohamed Abdel Hady and Emad Ghoneim. It is shot by cinematographer Mahmoud Lotfi and edited by Heba Othman, known for her work on the acclaimed Sudanese film Goodbye Julia.
A joint production spanning Egypt, France, Germany, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, The Settlement is produced by Hala Lotfy of Hassala Films (Cairo) with co-producers including Etienne de Ricaud of Caractères Productions (Paris), Kesmat Elsayed of Seera Films GmbH (Berlin), and ART (Jeddah).
The film has received support from numerous prestigious international bodies, including the IFFR’s Hubert Bals Fund, Doha Film Institute, Arab Fund for Arts and Culture, Red Sea Development Fund, Fonds Image de la Francophonie, and El Gouna Film Festival’s CineGouna Platform.
“Working on The Settlement took five years”, explained director Mohamed Rashad, “and throughout the journey of the film, I was able to fulfil my ambitions, such as casting completely unknown actors and involving real workers in important roles and groups. I also filmed in real locations, capturing scenes in Alexandria that closely matched what I had envisioned, along with the industrial atmosphere that I find artistically rich.
“All of these were goals I wanted to accomplish. Having the film now be showcased at such an important festival and competing in a new competition indicates that we, as a group, have realized our vision, which is fantastic,” he continued.
As for his collaboration with MAD, Rashad noted that the “company has recently achieved success in global distribution after a significant track record in Arab and regional distribution,” adding that “it’s encouraging because it shows that we support each other and contribute to each other’s success.”
Producer Hala Lotfy also reminisced on the film’s long journey and the challenges they faced along the way and said: “While The Settlement is undeniably an arthouse film, it certainly doesn’t have the budget of one. Filming The Settlement was a demanding but ultimately rewarding endeavour that involved on-location shoots across Cairo and Alexandria to stay true to its story and source material.”
She also expressed her eagerness to collaborate with MAD once again, and noted that her first film, Coming Forth By Day “was one of the first films MAD ever distributed,” and since then, she’s made it a point of “renewing that partnership whenever possible.”
French co-producer Etienne de Ricaud described his first collaboration with Mohammed Rashad and his second with Hassala Films and Hala Lotfy as “a blessing that reflects the understanding we all share as a team, united by the same vision regarding human relationships, reality, and cinema.”
German co-producer Kesmat Elsayed described her experience with The Settlement as profound, calling it “truly a labour of love, brought to life during a very challenging time for independent production in Egypt, thanks to the remarkable resilience of Egyptian producer Hala Lotfy.”
Elsayed added that The Settlement perfectly aligns with the vision we had when we founded our production company in Germany. To collaborate on films from Arab and African filmmakers, bridging the gap in representation and showcasing the incredible talent that often struggles to reach a global audience. The passion and dedication of everyone involved in this project have been nothing short of inspiring, and we are thrilled to see this story find its place on the world stage.”
“The theme this year at the Berlinale is loss in the context of the Arab World,” observed MAD Solutions co-founders Alaa Karkouti and Maher Diab. “Like our other films at Berlin, the central focus of The Settlement is how to cope with a harrowing loss. Remarkably, Rashad tackles that theme using a novel approach that mixes thrill with the plight of two brothers contending with a life, job, and purpose that they inherited in a way that we believe will intrigue viewers everywhere.”
“While we dedicate a lot of our focus here at MAD to making sure Arab stories reach the world stage so that they may find their place in global cinema culture, we also try to select titles that focus on universal themes so that we may build bridges between the Arab World and the rest of the globe. Loss is something we all go through regardless of where we are in the world, and though we may process or tackle it differently depending on the circumstances, grief remains at the heart of it for us all, and that can bring us closer together,” added Karkouti and Diab.