Tunisian director Sara Obeidi drew inspiration from the verses of Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish for the title of her new film, 'As If You Were Not There,' which is participating in the Cairo International Film Festival. Through this film, she gives a voice to the marginalized in life, those consumed by loneliness and worn down by the routine of work. Before the film's screening as part of the 'Horizons of Arab Cinema' competition at the festival, the director stated: 'The name is taken from a poem by Mahmoud Darwish: 'You forget, as if you were not there, like a fleeting love, like a rose at night...' which speaks of passersby, the people who go through life without any noise and who are important, but we do not see them.' The film stars Zainab Al-Malki, Noor Al-Hajri, Muhammad Yahya Al-Jaziri, Isra Qulai, Fatima Al-Falhi and Sondes Belhassen.
