In our latest Avant-titre episode, we look at Egyptian director Khairy Beshara’s fan favorite “Ice Cream in Gleam” (1992). In this video, Ahmed Abo El Fadl attempts to analyze the film from an alternative viewpoint, looking into Beshara’s relationship with the film’s protagonist, Seif, and how the film reflects some of Beshara’s personal shifts, as well as broader transformations in Egyptian cinema. Abo El Fadl also approaches the film as an exemplar of 1980s Egyptian New Wave cinema, and examines its take on Anwar Sadat’s open-door economic policy from a cultural and cinematic perspective. He draws a comparison between the film and Jean-Luc Godard’s French New Wave feature “Breathless,” which is sometimes considered a response to the invasion of US culture during the post-World War II era in France.