In Motion.
Moving image works exploring memory, belonging & the invisible threads that bind us to place.
In the Shadow of the Pyramids.
Photography, Narration & Sound Design by Laura El-Tantawy
A first-person reflection on memory and identity. Spanning images from 2005 to 2014, what began as an intimate look in the mirror to grasp the essence of Egyptian identity evolved into a meditation on the trials and tribulations of a nation in turmoil. The result is dark, tender and impassioned, a dialogue between the innocence of the past and the uncertainty of the future.
Guardians of the Land.
Filmed & Directed by Laura El-Tantawy | Produced on Commission for Autograph & Bagri Foundation
Part of I’ll Die For You, an ongoing exploration of climate change through the lives of small farming communities and their enduring bond with the land, She Fights in the Fields turns its gaze to the UK. This chapter reflects on the emotional and psychological aftershocks of Brexit and the Covid-19 pandemic, tracing their impact on the mental wellbeing of farmers, particularly women, whose resilience often goes unseen.
Through a meditative interplay of image and sound, the work contemplates the land not only as livelihood, but as a space of reflection and survival, a mirror of human endurance and the quiet struggle to remain rooted in an uncertain world.
I’ll Die For You.
Directed & Produced by Laura El-Tantawy
This film includes references to suicide. I share these moments with sensitivity & care. Please take a pause or step away if you find the subject difficult.
Over the past two decades, close to 300,000 farmers in India have taken their own lives, a devastating reflection of the pressures facing those who feed the world. Many were trapped in cycles of debt, borrowing through government or private lending schemes to invest in high-yield crops that ultimately failed to sustain them.
As India shifts rapidly from a rural society to an industrial, urban economy, the people who work the land face immense social and economic upheaval. Their struggles reveal the human cost of progress, stories of exhaustion, resilience and despair. Most drank the very pesticides meant to protect their crops; others chose fire or the stillness of a well. Each death, a silent protest: a plea buried in the soil.
An Immortal River.
Photography & Video by Laura El-Tantawy | Music "النهر الخالد" by Mohamed Abdel Wahab (Song Released 1954)
Flowing through history and memory, An Immortal River traces the quiet pulse of the Nile, Egypt’s enduring lifeline. Through a sequence of close-up vignettes, the river becomes both subject and mirror: its ripples echoing the rhythms of those who depend on it, its depths holding centuries of cultivation, resilience and prayer.
Accompanied by Mohamed Abdel Wahab’s timeless ode of the same name, the piece drifts between sound and silence, past and present. Here, water is no longer background: it is witness. A living archive of Egypt’s agricultural legacy, ever-changing yet eternal, carrying with it the stories of those who work, wait and dream along its banks.
Beyond Here Is Nothing.
Photographs, Video & Narration by Laura El-Tantawy | Multimedia Production, Music & Sound Design by Jose Bautista, Kanseisounds
A meditation on home and belonging. A tranquil state of mind, a nostalgic memory, an imagined destination: home is a perpetual possibility I continue to seek. Growing up between contrasting cultures, I see the world through a lens shaped by displacement. Beyond Here Is Nothing is an intimate and emotive exploration of rootlessness, the quiet weight of loneliness and the ceaseless search for belonging in unfamiliar places. Drifting between the physical and the ephemeral, the series unfolds through layers of image and word, a mirror of emotion, a living visual experience in dialogue with time.
Crazy For Sisi.
Photographs, Video & Audio by Laura El-Tantawy | Music by Donia Jarrar “Tahrir Square Movement 1” | Field Assistant Mohammed Seddik | Produced by Ethan Knight
Created in the wake of Egypt’s January 25th Revolution, Crazy for Sisi reflects on the years that followed a collective cry for “Bread, Freedom, Social Justice.” Through image, sound and rhythm, the work explores a nation caught between memory and disillusionment, where hope once filled the streets and silence later settled in its place.
In Egypt, we joke that we make “Pharaohs” out of our leaders, a dark humour that carries the weight of history. Is this instinct born of centuries of oppression, of colonial inheritance or is it simply human nature’s need for something, or someone, to believe in?
Composed of still and moving images, field sound and Donia Jarrar’s haunting score, Crazy for Sisi is not a political statement but a reflection: on power and vulnerability, devotion and fatigue and the complicated love we hold for the idea of leadership itself.
A Conversation with Zahra.
Directed & Produced by Laura El-Tantawy on Commission for Marie Claire, US
This film includes references to sexual violence & emotional abuse. These moments are approached with care, but please watch gently & step away if you need to.
Conceived as a single shot of the sea, A Conversation with Zahra unfolds as a quiet meditation on trauma, resilience and the unseen weight carried by those forced to rebuild their lives elsewhere. Layered with excerpts from a conversation with Zahra, a 40-year-old woman from Morocco whom I met at a care centre in Italy for refugee and asylum-seeking women, the film weaves image and voice into a portrait of survival.
The sea, at once a border and a passage, becomes a living metaphor for Zahra’s story: vast, restless, holding both pain and the possibility of renewal. Through her voice, Zahra reflects on the psychological scars that accompany displacement, the echo of violence that lingers long after safety is reached.