‘Aisha Can’t Fly Away’ review: A Cairo careworker finds herself caught up in local gang tensions

Dir: Morad Mostafa. Egypt/Sudan/Tunisia/Saudi Arabia/Qatar/France/Germany. 2025. 131mins

A decent life is rendered impossible by the unconscionable demands of others in Aisha Can’t Fly Away, Morad Mostafa’s ambitious, slow-burning first feature which charts the ethical dilemmas facing a Sudanese careworker in Cairo. The plight of an individual reveals a bigger picture of exploitation, conflict and compliance, although Mostafa’s approach of mixing genres and incorporating elements of magic realism doesn’t entirely gel. The subject and the impressive central performance from Buliana Simon should generate further festival interest following the film’s bow in Cannes Un Certain Regard.

A bigger picture of exploitation, conflict and compliance

Mostafa was selected as one of Screen’s Arab Stars Of Tomorrow in 2023, the year his short I Promise You Paradise played Cannes Critics Week. He sets Aisha Can’t Fly Away in his home neighbourhood of Ain Shans in eastern Cairo where, looking out from her spartan apartment, 26-year-old Aisha (Buliana Simon) is a witness to the violence surrounding her as local gangs vie for control. The charismatic Zuka (Egyptian rapper Ziad Zaza) currently rules the roost, dealing drugs, rallying his troops and meting out punishment to anyone who intrudes on his territory. There is an element of City Of God (2002) in the warren of streets and the feeling of a lawless frontier. 

Outside her apartment, Aisha seems to be in perpetual motion. Cinematographer Mostafa El Kashef (The Village Next To Paradise) uses the camera to stalk her hurried passage through the chaos of the neighbourhood, her journeys past markets and on public transport as she heads to her latest client. Her life is one of toil as she cooks, cleans, prepares food or administers medicine. She faces the world with a solemn look. Her eyes see everything but reveal nothing. Only a phonecall home prompts a rare smile of happiness.

The shadowy streets and threat of menace create a noir-like quality as Aisha walks home at night. There is also an echo of Rear Window in the way she watches events between the wooden slats that cover her window. It becomes inevitable that Zuka requires payment for her housing and safety – providing a duplicate key to the apartments of her clients is a request that Aisha feels unable to deny. She is an innocent caught in a web, but Zuka isn’t the only one who wants something from Aisha. Her latest client is the elderly, wheelchair bound Mr. Khalil (Mamdouh Saleh) who expects her to tend to his sexual needs. Complaints to her employer are dismissed as she is advised to “consider it like a nursing service”.

Simon makes Aisha a resolute, stoical figure as she absorbs everything that happens, something Mostafa emphasises with lengthy close-ups of her impassive face. Mostafa provides a wider political context in background news bulletins and the ongoing gang wars. Aisha finds some escape in a friendship with the defiant Tawfiqah (Maya Mohamed) and in a modest bond with chef Abdoun (Emad Ghoniem) who, like her, cannot call his life his own. There is also a flicker of connection with Zuka that is underdeveloped.

Mostafa adds a magic realist element to an already busy narrative with regular appearances of an ostrich. Dream and fantasy sequences featuring the creature strike an odd note that grows as Aisha starts to notice a strange rash on her abdomen and unsettling changes in her physical appearance. Is she mimicking the ostrich by hiding her head in the sand? Aisha Can’t Fly Away struggles to do justice to every aspect of Aisha’s story, but is at its best as an involving human drama focusing on the plight of the vulnerable caught in a world that seeks to exploit them.