Martin Bradley "After the Battle" is a very fine state-of-the-nation movie, the nation here being Egypt and the time, the present. This film, which has many scenes of documentary-like realism, could have been ripped from the headlines and, in a way, it was. It is a superb piece of political cinema, particularly to us in the West whose grasp on Egyptian politics may be tenuous at best but director Yousry Nasrallah coats his picture in the guise of a love story of sorts between a brusque horseman, coaxed into supporting the Mubarak regime with the promise of work, and a radical young divorcée who comes to support him and his family and it's a strategy that works.These are people from very different backgrounds and with very different ideas on how Egypt should be governed, particularly in relation to the role of women. Their meeting will have a major impact on both their lives and in unexpected ways. Of course, this romantic, human side to the story makes the film much more accessible to a wider audience. As the horseman and the woman who seeks to educate him both Bassem Samra and Menna Shalabi are excellent and there's a lovely performance from Nahed El Sebai as Samra's too trusting wife. Unfortunately after its screening at Cannes the film very much disappeared. Do yourself a favour and seek it out.

Katie Aladawy I Like it! by all means, it's based on true story and I'm aware of how was ESMA struggling with the horses epic. and for me I much appreciated to see it exposed on screen and deal it with humanity side. on acting side I really love it how purely and good they did their roles but it's kinda slow script. "Menna and Samra" intimate scenes, I know how Menna felt, because after 25jan most of us felt we are one! no matters "who you are" it doesn't matter if your "rich or poor" but still too much confusing feelings through the scenes make it not easy to accept it. I guess in middle east we still we don't like to see " swingers" yet, however they exists but not ready to be exposed on screens! overall it's a good movie and makes you see "unseen true events" that's absolutely exist in real life! most of Egyptians don't know it.

Lauren Solomon The film focuses on the lives of three characters: Reem, Mahmoud and Fatma. Reem being the upper class politically active idealist tries to help Mahmoud and Fatma, the couple from Nazlet Semman who are a suffering from the economic problems after the revolution. I might have had some difficulty understanding the motives of the characters, specially Reem who is very complicated. Fatma's character was the most annoying, the actress' performance was very weak. Honestly i expected a lot more from Yousry Nasrallah because i couldn't get over the melodramatic scenes and the over the top acting. But i kind of understand the difficulty of making a film about revolution that is not finished yet.. must have been very confusing for the filmmakers who refused to give up on the project but their confusion and struggle was showing through the characters. I gave "After the battle" an 8 because it had one of the most poetic film endings i have ever seen.

kmreleaser A poorly made C-movies for tourists who heed a crash course about the Egyptian revolution, and have no time to look it up in youtube.The film is too long and all that it offers is several mainstream superficial pop-politics, for people who have absolutely no idea about what happens anywhere else rather than where they live.It's just another try of selling the revolution and make money out of it, without even trying to make an OK movie while doing that. Any armature filmmaker or even someone with a mobile phone camera could with some effort do something quite better than that. I just felt insulted.