‘Safe Exit’ Director Mohammed Hammad on Staying True to His Vision: ‘I Need to Be Free as a Filmmaker’

Mohammed Hammad’s “Safe Exit” received an Atlas Prize for Post-production at the 2025 Atlas Workshops of the Marrakech Film Festival before making its debut in the Panorama section of the 2026 Berlinale. The film is now poised for its national debut at the El Gouna Film Festival, where it’s competing in the Feature Narrative section.

The film is Hammad’s long-awaited follow-up to his debut “Withered Green,” which bowed at the 2016 Locarno Film Festival and went on to win the best director prize at the Dubai Film Festival, as well as multiple awards closer to home in Cairo.

Hammad speaks to Variety about the challenges of getting his second film produced, and the satisfaction of screening in El Gouna.

How have you negotiated the difficulties of getting an independent film made in Egypt now?
“Safe Exit” is completely self-funded. We formed a new production company, Pariedolia Productions, and now we’re trying to distribute the film through that company, which is a challenge. We’ve chosen this model because many studios in Egypt tend to avoid this kind of film, especially given the topics it covers. Even getting the necessary permissions to shoot the film was very hard. But together with my producer Kholoud Saad I knew I needed to make this film, just like we made “Withered Green.”

What about your co-producers?
The main co-producer is Dora Bouchoucha with Nomadis Images, from Tunisia. And Ibrahim El-Battout, one of the godfathers of independent cinema in Egypt, is also a co-producer. Ibrahim was with me from the beginning, also as an adviser, and I trust him completely. We worked on pre-production together, in conjunction with Kholoud; Ibrahim is one of Egypt’s leading independent filmmakers, along with Khairy Beshara and Yousry Nasrallah, and he was with us throughout the shooting, every day.

“Withered Green” premiered in 2014. Can you talk about the challenges you’ve faced getting “Safe Exit” off the ground?
After “Withered Green.” I began work on a film called “Bullets & Bread.” It was a big project, a road movie, with Film Clinic as one of the producers. But after I finished the script [which received the Red Sea Lodge Award for an Arab Project in 2020], and I was scouting locations, the film was rejected by the censors. So my lovely project came to a halt after four years of work. After that, I couldn’t write. But I called the great director Daoud Abdel Sayed, and he told me, start another project, write another film. At first, I told him, it’s too hard, I’m not good now. But after a month or so, I began to write “Safe Exit,” which took about another year to finish the script.

But you’re not playing safe with “Safe Exit” – there are things in the film that might displease the censors here too.
Look, I need to be free as a filmmaker, to express my point of view and select topics I want to address. We had long discussions with the censorship office, and maybe this discussion impacted the film in a positive way. At the moment they’ve given us permission to screen the film in festivals within Egypt, and El Gouna is our national premiere. I’m so grateful for the support we’ve gotten from the El Gouna Film Festival: this is Egypt, it’s my country, and it’s extremely important for me as well as my cast and crew that we’re here. They believe in the film, and for us it’s a great opportunity.

Let’s talk about your characters. You have three very distinct main characters: a young Coptic man, Samaan, dealing with trauma; a homeless Muslim woman, Fatimah, who’s seen more than her fair share of life’s darker side; and Abdullah, an Islamic terrorist. Let’s start with the Coptic element.
I love my characters, especially Samaan and Fatimah. They’re pure, very pure. Regarding Coptic Christians, there are about 15 million in Egypt. Many of them are very successful and are integrated into society but of course they have specific issues given their minority status. But Samaan has another issue: his father was slaughtered in Libya by ISIS, and consequently he suffers from chronic PTSD. He’s trying to cope with the world he lives in but most importantly he’s trying to face himself and his fear. He can’t deal with his feelings, which is the opposite of Fatimah, who’s very talkative and spontaneous. She’s illiterate and undocumented, and while they’re very different, they’re both on the margins of society.

Can you describe how you worked with the actors?
Marwan Waleed, who stars as Samaan, is a relative newcomer who only appeared in one series. Noha Foad, who plays Fatimah, has been a close friend for years [she starred in Hammad’s 2010 short “Pale Red”]. We had nine months of rehearsal with the two of them.

How did you approach that rehearsal time?
Number one was getting them used to living together and talking together. Having them walk down the streets in Downtown Cairo, sitting down for a coffee, developing a friendship. Only after this did I talk to them about the story and their characters.

But the most important thing for me in rehearsals is that they took place in the main locations where we shot. The last two months of rehearsals were in the actual locations, so the actors felt at home there.

The look of the film is quite different from “Withered Green,” which was also shot by Mohammed El Sharqawy.
I’ve worked with Mohammad starting with our short films. We always work together. I like a tough look, a harsh look. It’s very close to a natural look, using available light sources. With “Safe Exit,” there are more colorful scenes because Fatimah’s character calls for colors. They act as a contrast to Samaan’s routine, his pallid room and his workspace. I’m drawn to this harsh texture, and “Safe Exit” is a very tough picture, but we also put some softness in certain scenes, especially with Fatimah.

Despite its toughness, you’ve managed to insert some humor into a very serious story.
I believe in comic relief, because the film is very dark. Maybe we can put some smiles on an audience, especially with Fatimah, but also with Samaan, who’s like a robot.

How do you see that you’ve developed between “Withered Green” and now?
I’m very happy with “Withered Green” and I’m very happy with “Safe Exit,” but “Withered Green” was me at that time of life and “Safe Exit” is me now. I don’t know about the third film [laughs]. But what I learned is how to make people feel entertained. Because with cinema it’s still important to be entertaining. Even though “Safe Exit” is dark, and addresses a very serious, very sensitive topic, we can still make part of it entertaining!

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.