Interview: Muhammed Hamdy – Perfumed with Mint (2024 Marrakech Intl. Film Festival)

Steeped in darkness and stillness, there is this pervasive sense of longing that permeates the ruins, not entirely deserted, structures of an unnamed section of Cairo. Here, in these communal spaces, the restless spirits of the dissatisfied mingle with the living (who suffer)—yet the lingering question persists: who, truly, are the living? Perfumed With Mint, a Venice Film Festival (Venice Critics’ Week) selection sees its figures transpose — an overlap and rhythm we felt in Pedro Costa’s Vitalina Varela and Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives. An Emmy-winning Egyptian cinematographer, Muhammed Hamdy‘s directorial debut is infused with a hypnotic visual aestheticism with a political subtext that uses humor almost like a medicinal herb not unlike the thick air that ruminates throughout the feature. A cinematographer on Jehane Noujaim’s The Square – it was at the 2024 Marrakech Intl. Film Festival where I could chat with Muhammed Hamdy – we touched upon the recent collapse of the Syrian government and how that undercurrent might be reflect in his film – and among other topics we discussed the tableaus and the significance of mint in this text.