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This thesis examines the impact of the 2011 Egyptian Revolution on Egyptian cinema in curating what I call a revolutionary aesthetic. The project also provides an overview of the history of Egyptian cinema and its relationship with politics under different regimes. The artistic space enabled and enhanced by the 2011 Revolution is rooted in the rich cinematic tradition of Egypt and has influenced not only independent cinema but also mainstream and commercial cinema, particularly in terms of visual aesthetics and technical aspects. The films examined are: Dreamaway (El Helm el-Baeid, Marouan Omara and Johanna Domke, 2018), Décor (Ahmed Abdallah, 2014), The Blue Elephant (El Fil el-Azraq, Marwan Hamed, 2014), Sheikh Jackson (Amr Salama, 2017), Withered Green (Akhdar Yabes, Mohammad Hammad, 2016), and Feathers (Reesh, Omar ElZohairy, 2021). This thesis adopts a close textual analysis of the films, to reveal a new avenue for artistic expression, innovation, and transformation in Egyptian cinema. These films employ revolutionary aesthetics in their complex narratives that address political issues and challenge prevailing ideologies. Their cinematography is innovative and transformative, uncovering tensions that are prevalent in the minds of Egyptians but usually concealed by religious and moral standards. The cinematic realism in the mise-en-scène of the films also helps convey issues of corruption, poverty, and radicalization in contemporary Egypt. This thesis argues that Egyptian cinema is transitioning into a new era marked by an artistic approach to exploring societal struggles and complexities.

This thesis examines representations of masculinity in the following Egyptian movies: El Badla (2018), Welad Rizk 2 (2019) and Taymour w Shafika (2007). Each movie is from a different genre to further explore how this may influence the constructed representation of masculinity. The genres are comedy, action and romance. Additionally, both El Badla and Welad Rizk 2 are among the top ten highest grossing movies in the history of Egyptian cinema. Whilst Taymour w Shafika is considered one of the most iconic romance movies in its era. Thus, it is inevitable that all these movies have been watched (and will be watched) by a large audience, hence it is crucial to study the constructed values within them as arguably they influence the society. The thesis studies Egyptian masculinity using two different methods: film analysis and interviews with Egyptian men. The main theories this paper applies are: active audience encoding/decoding theory, social role theory and social identity and self- categorization theories. All three movies were found to represent masculinity through traditional traits e.g. emotionless, family provider. Egyptian men reflected on some of the scenes and had varied perspectives on the matter. Men who did not agree with certain values in those representations did mention that they still have to follow them as it is the way they have been brought up. The results of this study cannot be generalized but it is a step forward in the research on representation of masculinities in Egyptian cinema, which is extremely under researched in comparison to the size of the film industry in Egypt.