Both films will vie for the festival’s top honours when it runs from November 7 to 23.
Two Egyptian feature films, Happy Birthday by Sarah Goher and The Stories by Abu Bakr Shawky, have been selected to compete in the official competition of the 28th Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival.
The festival’s main competition for its 29th edition will feature 17 films, including 16 world premieres and one international premiere. Organisers revealed that this year’s selection emerged from a record number of submissions: 1,900 for the main programme, 433 for the Just Film section, and over 5,600 for shorts. Submissions were received from more than 100 countries, with approximately 80 nations represented in the festival’s final lineup, which will include 110 world premieres and 30 international premieres.
Happy Birthday, Egypt’s official submission to the 2025 Oscars, centers on Toha, an eight-year-old maid working for a wealthy Cairo family. Her determination to celebrate her friend Nelly’s birthday becomes a poignant exploration of class divisions and social inequality, seen through the unfiltered perspective of childhood. The film has already earned widespread acclaim, winning three major awards at the Tribeca Film Festival — Best International Narrative Feature, the Nora Ephron Award, and Best Screenplay in an International Narrative Feature.
Abu Bakr Shawky’s The Stories, produced by Mohamed Hefzy’s Film Clinic and starring Nelly Karim and Amir El Masry, traces the long-distance friendship between an Egyptian pianist and his Austrian pen pal, spanning from 1967 to the 1980s. The film delves into themes of ambition, love and resilience against the backdrop of war and family struggles. Tallinn marks its world festival debut.
Both Happy Birthday and The Stories will compete for the festival’s top honours when the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival takes place from November 7 to 23, 2025.
