After years of working as a director in the field of cinema and theatre, Amr Gamal made his first feature film, “Ten Days Before the Wedding,” in a country where cinema or theater is a luxury art that does not exist. Although Yemen has witnessed an amazing creative cultural movement since the middle of the twentieth century that highlighted storytellers, poets, and playwrights, the seventh art had to wait for the beginning of the new millennium and the manifestation of a new generation.

  Since he attracted public attention through his first feature film with his professional directing technique, which included a serious artistic elite of actors and actresses, his second feature movie, “The Exhausted Ones,” achieved him a first place in the world of cinema in Yemen, and in international film festivals.

The film "The Exhausted Ones" participated in the 73rd Berlin Film Festival, and won the Amnesty International Award, becoming the first Yemeni film to take part in this festival. In November 2023, the film won the Med Film Rome International Award at the 29th round of this festival. In addition, the film won a Golden Hugo Award at the Chicago International Film Festival. If Jamal started with a story about two people’s wish to get married in his movie (Ten Days Before the Wedding), he returns with a new story about abortion in his latest movie (The Exhausted Ones).

There is a common denominator that unites Amr Gamal's films "Ten Days Before the Wedding" and "The Burdened", which is the presence of the wounded city of Aden in his two movies. It is still too early for the war in Yemen to become part of the history, in the sense that we can talk about it in the past tense. Therefore, we find Amr Gamal’s tendency for the place to play a fundamental role as a living witness to the sequences of the war in Yemen.

The film begins in the city of Aden, and its events revolve around a family of five members who are struggling to survive. It is the story of a middle-class Yemeni family, suffering from the economic ramifications of the war that originally broke out in September of 2014. The film was portrayed through the character of Ahmed (Khaled Hamdan), who was working on Aden TV but he had not received his salary for a while, and several months passed without finding a job. The financial burdens on the family are increasing, including the rent of the apartment, school fees, and household expenses, so that they were forced to evict the apartment and move to a dilapidated flat. As a result, Ahmed is forced to work as a taxi driver to support his family, otherwise the family will be smashed by absolute poverty. 

Moreover, the mother, Israa (Abeer Mohammad), is shocked to discover that she was pregnant and expecting a new baby before she, along with her husband, decides to get rid of the fetus. Both realize that they simply cannot afford a fourth child at the moment, so the couple embarks on a long journey to obtain an illegal abortion.

Aborting the future of a generation

Amr Gamal brilliantly charts the social, religious, political, and economic pressures in a couple's lives, and provides a useful reminder that some personal decisions in Yemen are not to be taken alone. Abortion is taboo and viewed as a sin; so it is also a community decision. Therefore, we will see Ahmed after convincing his wife of the necessity of abortion, both of them will have to convince their neighbors, friends and family.

Meanwhile, the husband finds a video clip of a cleric confirming that the fetus has no soul until it reaches the age of 120 days. But Israa's close friend, Doctor Mona (Samah Al-Amrani), categorically rejects the idea, as does Dr. Nevin. However, religious beliefs change when one of the nurses sympathizes and coordinates an abortion at home without medical supervision.

Obviously, there have been many films about abortion in recent years, each taking a unique and necessary approach to a topic that is more important than ever to talk about. Nonetheless director Amr Gamal, here, explores the war and its consequences in Yemen from several aspects, considering that it is a story that the director personally lived in the city of Aden, and symbolically expresses the aborting of the future of an entire generation of Yemeni men and women.

The Exhausted people in this film symbolize educated people who have risen in society through their employment at Aden TV, but the war imposed a new reality, where involvement in the vortex of war became a path to career and social ascension. Hence, Ahmed’s brother-in-law, who was a failure in the eyes of the family, and did not have a university degree or any profession, symbolizes these social changes in the post-war era where he gained great influence in the new reality through joining a military group. The family now viewed the educated, indebted father as a loser, lacking the connections and influence of his powerful brother-in-law. We see this crisis reality in the family lunch scene that includes the two families, where Ahmed’s brother-in-law, a soldier in the army, places his loaded weapon next to his seven-year-old child, while Ahmed merely observes this situation with anger and dissatisfaction.

An ending that does not resemble the reality of the characters

There is a common denominator that unites Amr Gamal's films "Ten Days Before the Wedding" and "The Burdened", which is the presence of the wounded city of Aden in his two movies. It is still too early for the war in Yemen to become part of the history, in the sense that we can talk about it in the past tense. Therefore, we find Amr Gamal’s tendency for the place to play a fundamental role as a living witness to the sequences of the war in Yemen.

Most of the film's scenes were filmed in one continuous shot that monitors the place, its residents, and their movements within the city and even inside the houses, in a panoramic manner, with the camera moving through different parts of the house, the stairs, the living room, to the balcony. The war is visually embodied through the scattered military points and destroyed homes. We visually follow their daily suffering, which is manifested in power outages, standing in line for the water tank that the army brings in the neighborhood, and then transporting water from the street to the house.

Throughout the film, director Amr Gamal focuses on the creative process rather than the final result, which adds authenticity to the narrative. Unlike abortion movies, where we see a pregnant woman performing this procedure in order to achieve her dreams in the end, abortion in this film without dreams, desires, or ambition is an abortion of the dreams and future of the exhausted generation; Hence the ending comes as suspenseful, confusing and miserable, just like the reality of the characters in the movie.  

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