Three months before the January 25, 2011 uprising, the director of FORBIDDEN began shooting her first scenes in the streets of Cairo on her own. Like this she had to hide from the eyes of the police, often sheltering in homes of the friends and acquaintances that we see in the film discussing acts and thoughts that were typically forbidden in Egypt those days. The film is a testimony of the situation before the January 25, 2011 revolution. It explores the very meaning of the word "forbidden," which punctuates many forms of Egyptian daily life even as it remains incomplete and contested. In the end, the revolution comes on the last day of editing FORBIDDEN to provide answers to many of the questions that the film raises.
