'Villa 69' (dir. Ayten Amin) subtitled.
A dramedy about illness, intimacy and death. Hussein (Khaled Abol Naga), is a terminally ill, yet charming architect who enjoys a solitary routine in his old family home, and a variety of female visitors. Not realising his past is about to catch up with him, Hussein’s sister and her grandson move into the house, disrupting a well-established lifestyle, and forcing him to reexamine his ideas about life, love, and family.
The film explores the denial phase that people with terminal illness go through as well as the role of their support network of family, friends and work colleagues. It shows the confl icting emotions towards teminal illness including end of life suffering versus life at all cost. The sense of place and nostalgia runs throughout the fi lm as it tackles the preferred place of death, and family inheritance. An emphasis on contiuing to embrace life and its pleasures such as music and arts is poignantly portrayed.
A Q&A follows the film chaired by Professor Nadia Elkholy, Egyptian Cultural Counsellor, London, with lead actor Khaled Abol Naga; Dr Khalid Ali, Senior Lecturer in Geriatrics at BSMS, Stroke consultant physician at Brighton and Sussex University Hospital (BSUH) NHS Trust; Dr Andreas Hiersche, Lead Clinician in the BSUH Specialist Palliative Care Team; and BSMS Professor of Clinical and Biomedical Ethics, Bobbie Farsides.
Read a review of Villa 69 in Variety >