A traveling storyteller revisits the real places behind Upper Egypt’s most haunting folk tale of honor and blood.

Shafika and Metwally is a short poetic documentary that reimagines one of the most tragic and controversial folk tales in Egyptian oral history. Set in Upper Egypt and told through the voice of a traditional storyteller, the film traces the path of a brother who killed his sister in the name of honor. Through chants, narration, and on-location filming in the actual villages tied to the original events, the story is reawakened—not to condemn or romanticize, but to understand how it has endured.

More than folklore, the story of Shafika and Metwally reveals Egypt’s complex relationship with gender, morality, and storytelling itself.