Imaginative, ornamental, and shot on 16 mm analogue stock, East of Noon marks Elkoussy’s second full-length film, which received the Verbeelding Grant in Doha before landing in Cannes. It stands as one of the two MENA titles in the Director’s Fortnight section this year, alongside Mahdi Fleifel’s To a Land Unknown from Palestine. A surrealist folktale, it juxtaposes immersed, non-corrupted youngsters in the music world with the autocracy of an infantile entertainment boss for whom they work. Filmed over 22 days in an abandoned wood factory in Helwan, Cairo, and along Egypt’s Red Sea Coast, the…