HABIBI HUSSEIN

Palestine, Germany, Saudi Arabia, Sweden I 2025 I Arabic, English, German dialogue with English subtitles l 96 min

ABOUT FILM

Palestinian filmmaker and actor Alex Bakri presents his deeply personal feature-length documentary Habibi Hussein, a work of great sensitivity that begins with an intimate friendship and expands to explore broader questions of loss, memory, identity, and what it means for someone to remain present in our lives even when physically absent or forcibly removed.

The film received strong critical attention from its first screenings, participating in the International Critics’ Week at the 46th Cairo International Film Festival (November 2025), where it won the Shadi Abdel Salam Award for Best Film—a prize given to works distinguished by an original artistic vision and high cinematic sensitivity.

Habibi Hussein follows a personal journey in which Bakri returns to the figure of Hussein as a friend, a memory, and a presence that never fades. The film treats loss not as a finite moment but as an ongoing condition, one that shifts forms and reshapes the self and its relationship with the world. Through this relationship, the film opens a space for reflecting on friendship and the impact of politics, exile, and time on human connections.

The film’s distinctiveness lies in its emotional honesty and its avoidance of direct discourse or ready-made political interpretation. Bakri employs his personal voice, images, and daily life to construct a deliberate narrative where memory intertwines with the present, transforming the documentary into an act of listening rather than loud confession. Here, the camera is not a tool of revelation but a companion, accompanying hesitation, silence, and unanswered questions.

Visually, the film uses a simple and stripped-down language that gives faces, places, and spaces their full semantic weight. The calm rhythm allows memory to form slowly, while silence becomes a key narrative element, carrying what words cannot express. The documentary does not aim to record a specific event but to capture its profound human impact.

At its screening at the Malmö Arab Film Festival, Habibi Hussein offers a moving and honest documentary experience, reflecting on love, friendship, absence, and the power of cinema as a means to preserve those we love and to confront loss with sensitivity, courage, and depth.