The film received the Golden Dove Award for Best Film in the German competition in Dok Leipzig 2020 and three major awards at the 2020 Cairo International Film Festival.
Netflix has picked up the right to stream TIFF 2020 documentary Lift Like A Girl from Egyptian director Mayye Zayed, who also serves as producer.
Mayye Zayed, who studied film and documaking at Wellesley and MIT, spent four years following the main character of her female empowerment documentary, Lift Like a Girl. Zebiba (which means raisin in Arabic), who at age nine entered former Olympic athlete Captain Ramadan’s weightlifting training camp on a vacant Alexandria lot.
The film tracks Zebiba through her training, charting her wins and losses, as she overcomes the prejudices of a male-dominated sport on her journey from dust to gold. It is produced by Cléo Media in co-production with ZDF Das Kleine Fernsehspiel, in association with Jyoti Film and Rufy’s Films. It is Zayed’s first feature documentary.
Written, directed, and produced by Mayye Zayed, co-produced by Anka Petersen and Anna Polster, edited by Sarah Abdullah, photographed by Muhammad Al-Hadidi, sound tape design by Samir Nabil and Brian Derby, music by Marianne Montreb, colour correction, a grant from Andromeda Film, and it is an Egyptian-German-Danish co-production.
The film received the Golden Dove Award for Best Film in the German competition in Dok Leipzig 2020 and three major awards at the 2020 Cairo International Film Festival including the Bronze Pyramid for Best First or Second Film, Audience Award and Isis Award for Best Egyptian Film representing women’s social and economical role.
