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Regional secretary with the National Education Union
Reel concerns at Cannes Film Festival
AB Shawky's Yomeddine sees a pair of outcasts flee a leper colony and an orphanage in a captivating portrait of modern Egypt

WITH less emphasis on glamour and red carpet, Cannes got off to an unusually strong start with one of the most substantial opening films in years.

Asghar Farhadi’s Everybody Knows is a tense Spanish-language kidnapping drama starring Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem in which Laura  (Cruz) returns to Spain to attend her sister’s wedding in a rural community where everyone’s lives are intermingled in innumerable ways.

The nuptials, involving the whole village, are suddenly plunged into darker territory when, during a power cut, Laura’s daughter is kidnapped and the repercussions are intriguingly tangled.

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