The Square

Synopsis

Tahrir Square. The revolution filmed from inside, by the people who would not leave.

In January 2011, hundreds of thousands of Egyptians converged on Tahrir Square in central Cairo. What began as a protest against the regime of Hosni Mubarak became a revolution that would topple a government, redraw the political landscape of the Middle East, and test the faith of everyone who stood in the square and believed that something permanent had changed.

Director Jehane Noujaim was there from the beginning, filming not from a distance but from within the crowd. The documentary follows three participants whose lives become inseparable from the revolution: Ahmed Hassan, a young man from a working-class neighborhood who discovers his political voice in the square; Khalid Abdalla, an actor and activist born in Egypt but raised in England, who returns to Cairo to join the movement; and Magdy Ashour, a member of the Muslim Brotherhood who finds himself caught between his organization's political calculations and his own conscience.

The film tracks the revolution through its successive phases, the euphoria of Mubarak's fall, the military's interim rule, the election of Mohamed Morsi, and the second revolution that followed. Each phase tests the bonds between the three men and the principles they thought they shared. The camera does not turn away from the violence, the tear gas, the military vehicles rolling into civilian crowds. It also does not turn away from the quieter moments, the arguments in cafes, the late-night strategy sessions, the grief.

The Square received a 2014 Academy Award nomination for Best Documentary Feature. It won three Emmy Awards for Outstanding Cinematography, Outstanding Directing, and Outstanding Picture Editing in Nonfiction. It received the Sundance Audience Award, the TIFF People's Choice Documentary Award, the IDA Best Feature Documentary, and the Sheffield Tim Hetherington Award. Massimiliano "Max" Musina is credited with a Special Thanks on the film.