As I Want

Cairo, January 25th 2013. Two years after the Egyptian revolution the promises made at the Arab Spring are hardly fulfilled, so tensions rise on the Tahrir Square. Multiple women in the crowd fall victim to sexual aggression. This sparks public outrage in the media as well as in the streets. Director Samaher Alqadi also took to the streets to protest together with countless other women. Them holding kitchen knives, her holding her camera. The touching testimonies of friends, activists and victims are shown next to conversations she had with men in the streets. She says she uses her camera as means to make a documentary, but also to protect herself. Alqadi builds a portrait of the society that has to unravel itself from the grasp of the patriarchal system and from the women who take the lead in this fight, knowing what price they will have to pay.

As I Want is not only a report, but it takes on a personal approach. There is intimate black and white footage of a pregnant Alqadi herself where she admits to her unborn child that she should be more concerned if it were a girl than if it were a boy. In the voice-over she strikes up a fictional dialogue with her late mother about her strict upbringing. Alqadi reflects on what it means to be a woman in the Egyptian society and frankly poses this question to her surroundings. She is vulnerable in front of the camera, emotional about deep traumas but at the same time she is hopeful about the fight for change.