Film Review: ‘A Present From the Past’

Personal filmmaking on the fly doesn’t get more charming than “A Present From the Past,” Kawthar Younis’ delightful autobiographical essay whose rough, largely hidden-camera visuals somehow add to its appeal. Thirty years ago, Younis’ father broke off a relationship with a woman he met while studying in Italy; as a birthday present, Kawthar buys tickets to Rome so they can find his former love together. The father and daughter’s playful relationship, along with the delicious anticipation of whether they locate his ex, should make “Present” a winning fest item anywhere.


Mokhtar Younis, a cinema professor in Cairo, doesn’t know his daughter is filming when she presents him with two tickets to Rome as a gift for his 75th. (Presumably) happily married for nearly three decades, Mokhtar never hid his past relationship with a certain Patrizia, the Italian he romanced and abandoned years earlier in Rome. He’s dutifully kept a ring of hers he always wanted to return, though now that Kawthar is giving him the chance, he gets cold feet.

His wife is encouraging — she probably thinks it will finally get Patrizia out of his system — so Mokhtar finally agrees, and he and Kawthar fly off to Rome with only a name and an address from 30 years earlier. Miraculously, outside the apartment building they meet a longtime resident who remembers the woman and informs them she moved two decades earlier to Rovigo. Disappointed, Kawthar hits the Internet and finds Patrizia is running a B&B in that northern city, so she and Dad make the journey, hoping to find the woman who symbolizes Mokhtar’s dreams of the past.