C’est un regard de l’intérieur, celui du cinéaste, Samir Abdallah, Français de père égyptien et de mère danoise. Résidant en banlieue depuis quarante ans, il a toujours filmé ses deux fils, Nessim et Bilal, de mère Française d’origine marocaine.
Récemment, le cinéaste amène ses enfants, devenus des adultes, dans les trois pays liés à leurs racines : le Maroc, le Danemark, et l’Egypte.

De in Parijs woonachtige regisseur Samir Abdallah heeft een Egyptische vader, een Deense moeder en een Marokkaanse vrouw. Samen met zijn kinderen Nessim en Bilal maakte hij een reis naar de landen van hun grootouders. Quo vadis? is een verslag van die reis naar hun ‘oorsprong’. ‘Zodat zij zullen weten waar zij vandaan komen… en hun eigen weg vooruit kunnen vinden.’

Egypte / Frankrijk | 2006 | Beta Sp | 76 min. | kleur | Frans / Deens / Arabisch gesproken | Engels ondertiteld
Regie Samir Abdallah

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Film director Samir Abdallah lives in Paris. He has an Egyptian father, a Danish mother and a Moroccan wife. He takes his children Nessim and Bilal on a journey to the countries of their grandparents. Quo vadis? is a documentary of the journey to their ‘roots’. ‘So that they know where they come from…so they can find their own way.’

Egypt / France | 2006 | Beta Sp | 76 min. | color | French / Danish / Arabic spoken | English subtitles
Director Samir Abdallah

Director, Scriptwriter & Cinematographer: Samir Abdallah
Producer: Lilya Abou
Editor: Nabila Soulyman
Composer: Bilal Abdallah

Samir Abdallah was born in 1959 in Copenhagen, Denmark. He moved to France at the age of six. From 1983 on he (co-) directed several documentaries, among which Writers on the Borders with José Reynès.

Director Samir Abdallah presents a film about himself, his parents and his family, who now live in the suburbs of Paris. His father is Egyptian, his mother Danish, born to Moroccan parents. His two sons, Nessim, 19, and Bilal, 17, were both born in France. This mosaic of origins is reason enough for Abdallah to attempt a journey into the past with his family. They visit Denmark, Morocco and Egypt, looking for their roots and attempting to keep them from being demolished by the years. The fact that his family lives in the same Paris suburbs that witnessed race riots in November 2005 makes the film a journey into present-day problems of belonging as well as into the past.
– Mohammed Rouda