MAHATAH - Side Stories from Main Stations (2021)

Beginning and end, farewell and reunion: for some it represents home, for others the start of an adventure. At train stations all over the world, people are setting off on their journeys while others return. Or wait. For the next connection, or perhaps for better times. Whether in Cairo or Zurich. Railway stations are like islands, suspended between space and time, cosmopolitan meeting points and crossroads. Mahatah - Side Stories from Main Stations delves into this universe where, almost unnoticed, people scrub stairs, make up train compositions, provide security, and sell tickets - or kebabs. Their names are Wala, Marina, Raimundo, and they work with dedication to keep alive a place that so many only register in passing. In the heat of Cairo, keeping calm helps, in Zurich, air conditioning or dancing. In both places, people are passionately living out their lives at the train station, their little cosmos. Encounters that fade into everyday life find space in Mahatah, the Arabic word for station. Episode by episode, the film consolidates into the collective rhythm of everyday life, uncovering stories from two countries whose shared poetry develops into universal human energy. Until the next reunion or the next goodbye, until the next train pulls into or out of the station, the world is united in Mahatah.