In the Last Days of the City is a visual romantic poem dedicated to every deteriorating crevice in the bustling streets of Cairo. Tamer El Said captures the turbulence and uncertainty that engulfed the city just before the 2011 Egyptian Revolution by immersing us completely in the world of his protagonist, Khalid, a filmmaker struggling to piece together a film, while confronting displacement, his mother’s illness, and finding his purpose. Through a documentary style lens, the film becomes a time capsule, a portal into moments torn between hope and despair, a time that many of us are still trying to make sense of. El Said’s Cairo is alive and on the precipice of a life altering phenomenon. It battles the winds of change with a weakened heart full of anger and grief, yet its roots remain intact. Entrenched in memory and nostalgia, we drift with Khalid into a familiar yet ever-changing landscape of a city that will, despite the whirlwinds, always endure. — HODA AHMED ISMAIL