Suspended Dawn

Suspended Dawn is a poetic archaeological excavation of Egypt’s cinematic golden age. The video essay revisits Youssef Chahine’s 1954 film The Blazing Sun which was released shortly after the Free Officers Revolution and starred Faten Hamama with Omar Sharif in his first screen appearance.Using digital manipulation and layered sound, over several chapters Grayeb overlays and fragments scenes from the original film, infusing contemporary figures into the pharaonic landscape of Luxor. The resulting juxtapositions create a dialogue between past and present, cinema and archaeology, myth and modernity.