REPLAY - Moving Image Series

2026, Maha Maamoun, 2010, Single-channel digital video, black-and-white, sound, 8 min., 21 sec., Dimensions Variable

Synopsis

In Maha Maamoun’s film, a time traveler recounts his vision of the Pyramids area—and, by extension, Egypt—in the year 2026. The man lies in a hammock, wearing an eye mask with cables running along his body, re-enacting an iconic scene from Chris Marker’s La Jetée (1962). Yet rather than post-apocalyptic Paris, the scene unfolds in a deserted building in contemporary Cairo.

The film draws on an excerpt from Mahmoud Uthman’s Arabic-language science fiction novel The Revolution of 2053: The Beginning (2007), read in voiceover over a photographic sequence. The future described by the traveler remains caught in exhausted reformulations of the present.

Learn more about Maamoun’s work here.

Screening History in 2026 *****

2026 “Genossin Sonne (Comrade Sun),” HMKV HartwareMedienKunstVerein 

2026 Black Movie Festival

2026 Go Short – International Short Film Festival Nijmegen

Collections

The Museum of Modern Art — and 2026 was shown in a solo presentation “Maha Maamoun: Selected Works (2005–2013)” curated by Clair Davis at the museum in 2022-23

Selected Press

2026. The Metropolitan Museum of Art Collection.

Maha Maamoun: 2026 — HMKV Video of the Month. Hartware MedienKunstVerein (HMKV).

Interview with Maha Maamoun. That Passes Between Us.

“Making Public: In Conversation with Maha Maamoun.” This Is Public Parking.

Film Credits

Actor: Ahmad Kamal

Production: Tamer Eissa, Doa Aly

Lighting: Kareem Seif

Editing: Louly Seif, Maha Maamoun