Catalog

 We live in a society that is promoting sex role equality.  Of course not all of us have completely adopted the new life style.  "Catalog" illustrates that some men have taken their wives for granted.  

In the first few minutes we meet Amina the wife who shortly dies.  Youssef and the two children, Karima and Mansour are grieving.  The father, a workaholic, also grieving was pretty clueless about his children's needs, but learns and eventually finds a list of videos that Amina left regarding parenting.

Youssef's brother Hanify is also a very supportive soccer coach for his talented nephew, Mansour.

Amina's brother Osama, also grieving comes to live with Youssef's family.

A comical character is their landlord who suffers agoraphobia and regularly provides advice and we realize he has secrets.

You will be aware the story takes place in a Muslim country.  Ramadan is celebrated, their polite greeting are stereotypical Islamic and the occasional hijab,  Egypt is more modern than many other Muslim countries.  There seems in films at least a move towards sex role equality.

 The grieving feels compelled to smoke, but the first video talks about how unhealthy smoking is for the children and he right away throws all his cigarettes out and no other smoking scenes occur,

A period seems to be a part of any story with a growing girl, but is handled a little differently.  Youssef is pretty clueless, but concerned.  Karima is a little irritable and uses having her first period as an excuse.  Locks herself behind her bedroom door as father wants to know what is happening.  Not sure how to explain it, but Karima calmly explains that her mother had already explained it to her--all she needs is a pad.  He says he will go to the pharmacy to get one and she follows up--you don't need to do that--just get one from mom's bottom drawer."

 It looks like at least part of it was filmed in Alexandria, Egypt.  Historical, but also modern and very beautiful on the Mediterranean. 

Although I have seen a number of Egyptian films there aren't a lot of connections.  I note some names as they are likely to show up in the future.

Khaled El Halafawy was the director with 17 directing credits.

Ayman Wattar was the writer with 13 writing credits and 7 for acting and 1 for composing.

Mohamed Farrag played Youssef.  He has 5 acting credits including  http://www.therealjohndavidson.com/2022/02/newtons-cradle.html

 Khaled Kamal played the brother and a soccer coach for his nephew Mansour.  He has 44 acting credits.

Tara Emad played a sort of romance element as a teacher for Karima.  She has 34 acting credits including  least one in Bollywood. 

Riham Abdel Ghafourat played Amina, the dead wife, but is seen in her parenting videos and a few flashbacks.  She has 58 acting credits.

Retal Abdelaziz plays the daughter Karima.  This is her film debut and she had sessions with Mohamed Farrag to get the father daughter relationship comfortable.  She is very charming.

Ali El Beialy played the son Mansour and was required to display some soccer skills.  This was his second film feature.

Although there is a lot of grieving it is full of humor, but not childish.  Another series from Egypt similar in family content is "Finding Ola" (2022)  see http://www.therealjohndavidson.com/2024/04/finding-ola-first-series.html

Available with dubbing and subtitles on Netflix.