Egyptian Omar El Zohairy’s seriocomedy, Feathers, won the Nespresso Grand Prize at the Critics’ Week, the Cannes Film Festival’s section dedicated exclusively to first or second films.

The 2021 program, which marks the sidebar’s 60th edition, featured 13 world premieres. The smallest series in Cannes is also the most selective: the seven films in competition were chosen from over 1,000 entries by artistic director Charles Tesson and his committee.

Set in contemporary Egypt, Feathers, which represents El Zohairy’s impressive feature debut, relates the peculiar journey of a loyal wife and mother of three children whose husband is turned into a chicken by a magician.

The film, a co-production between France, Egypt, The Netherlands, and Greece, received financial support from numerous international institutions and funds during its different production phases.

It was developed with the Baumi Award, Torino Film Lab, and Cinéfondation and received a Post-production Award at the Atlas Workshop of the Marrakech International Film Festival and the Dutch post-production award.

The original tale follows an initially passive mother, stuck in repetitive and mundane chores, who dedicates all of her time and energy to the needs of her husband and children.

When a magic trick goes wrong at the birthday party of her youngest son, various coincidental absurdities befall the family. Chief among those incidents occur when the magician turns the husband, a rigid authoritarian patriarch, into a chicken.

As a result, the mother is forced to become a leader and take care of the family, while at the same time she’s moving heaven and earth to bring her husband back. As she tries to survive, she too goes through rough and absurd transformations.

Reportedly, El Zohairy used over 30 real chickens in the production and relied on the assistance of an animal trainer.

Omar El Zohairy studied at the Cairo Cinema Institute and worked as an assistant director alongside Egypt’s most prominent directors, including Yousry Nasrallah and Youssef Chahine.

His first short film, Breathe Out, won the Jury Special Mention Prize at the Dubai International Film Festival.

His second short, The Aftermath of The Inauguration of The Public Toilet at Kilometer 375, was the first Egyptian film to be selected for the Cannes Cinefondation at The Cannes Festival.