Uncle Philip's Coat

Maverick underground American/ Lebanese musician and ethnomusicologist Alan Bishop (Sun City Girls, Sublime Frequencies), lands as a stranger in Cairo, soon after the 2011 uprisings and teams up with three young Egyptian musicians for the translation of his old songs into Arabic. Under Bishop's mentorship, this unlikely collaboration transforms into a band, The Invisible Hands. Structured around fly-on-the-wall scenes, archival ghost apparitions, absurd cameos and poetic diary narrations by Bishop, and unfolding between the two critical elections, that marked the post 'Arab Spring' period in Egypt, the film juxtaposes the tragicomedy of politics and art-making in the so-called periphery. —Marina Gioti