Abdo Zin Eldin

Abdo Zin Eldin is a Cairo- and Amsterdam-based film director and multidisciplinary artist, first developed in response to the Egyptian upheaval of 2011. He has been working with vulnerable communities and cultures in Egypt — moving between the spiritual, the rural, and the urban — with the urgency to capture beings, times, and worlds that the ruling discourse has deemed forgotten and that were threatened with disappearance. During his residency Abdo is researches and experiments with the boundaries between documentary and fiction. He summons ghosts and historical elements rendered fictional within the very documentary to create liminal realms that conjure dialogues between the living and the dead, the past and the present, and interrogate architecture as a repository of power, memory, and haunting. The images, objects, and sounds captured and collected become the raw material that shapes his work and provokes the medium whether film, sound, sculpture, and/or performance. Credits & Works Portrait by Annelies Wina Doom Still from The Cow’s Complaint — Abdo Zin Eldin & Mahdy Abo Bahat Excerpt from The Cow’s Complaint (film, 2026) — Abdo Zin Eldin & Mahdy Abo Bahat — Excerpt from Supper after Remembrance (film & live score performance, 2026) — Abdo Zin Eldin Behind the scenes — Supper after Remembrance Excerpt from The Goose’s Excuse (film, 2023) — Co-directed with Mahdy Abo Bahat A Gaze and A Ray — Installation, Rijksakademie Open Studios 2025 — Photo: Tom Janssen Channeling Three Soldiers of the Kavallerie-Kazerne — Performance, Rijksakademie Open Studios 2025 — Photo: Özgür Atlagan A Horse with a Downward-Bent Neck (film, ongoing) Channeling Three Soldiers of the Kavallerie-Kazerne — Performance, Rijksakademie Open Studios 2025 — Photo: Özgür Atlagan — The Bearer of the Asphalt — Sculpture & audiovisual installation, Cairo 2023 — In collaboration with Ali Al Gazzar The Bearer of the Asphalt — Sculpture & audiovisual installation, Cairo 2023 — In collaboration with Ali Al Gazzar GalalaLive — Live at Museumnacht, Rijksakademie 2025 A Golden Baby Star — Sculpture, Rijksakademie 2025 — Portrait by Annelies Wina Doom #AbdoZinEldin #Rijksakademie #Resident #Artist

[MENTION PRIX DES JEUNES - GNCR 2026 l GNCR YOUNG JURY AWARD MENTION 2026] THE COW'S COMPLAINT de / by Mahdy Abo Bahat (@gravegood.mp4 ) et Abdo Zin Eldin (@abdudo ) #cinemadureel @gravegood.mov @_supernovafilms_

[MENTION PRIX DU PREMIER FILM LORIDAN-IVENS 2026 l LORIDAN-IVENS AWARD MENTION 2026] THE COW'S COMPLAINT de / by Mahdy Abo Bahat (@gravegood.mp4 ) et Abdo Zin Eldin (@abdudo ) #cinemadureel @gravegood.mov @_supernovafilms_

On Sunday 17 May, 16:00–18:00, we open Conditions of Presence at Bradwolff Projects — an exhibition where images resist immediate recognition, lingering instead as something elusive and unresolved. In the work of Abdo Zin Eldin, the boundaries between sculpture, film, sound and performance continuously shift. His practice moves between the spiritual, the rural and the urban — tracing worlds, voices and forms of presence on the verge of disappearance. His sculptures feel like remnants of ritual or architectural fragments of memory: fragile, charged and animate. Materials carry traces of time, the body and history. What emerges remains suspended between fiction and document, between the living and the absent. Conditions of Presence brings together works that resist fixed interpretation. Through sculpture, sound, textile, video, installation and drawing, meaning unfolds through fragments, interruptions and resonances. Featuring works by Atousa Bandeh, Hamza Badran, Golrokh Nafisi, Bahar Noorizadeh, Reyhan Lál, Saman Mahdavi, Sam Samiee and Abdo Zin Eldin. Opening Sunday 17 May, 16:00–18:00 Bradwolff Projects, Oetewalerstraat 73, Amsterdam DM for more information. #art #mixedmedia #contemporaryart #globalart #internationalartist

We’re honored to share that we’ll be performing a live set, “Ya Quddus,”. Join us tomorrow for the opening night of “flour, water, soil” at @w139amsterdam , initiated by @mariakhatchadourian With works by: Ai Ozaki, Areej Ashhab, belit sağ, Common Ground, Maria Khatchadourian, Ola Hassanain 🗓 Friday 24 April ⏰ 19:00–22:00 Live by: @abdudo @date.fka.jochem @karam.abdulrahman_ Poster image: close-up of the sculpture “berr” by Abdo Zin Eldin Poster design: Jochem Date

THE COW’S COMPLAINT (شكوى البقرة), the new documentary feature by current resident **Abdo Zin Eldin (@abdudo ) and Mahdy Abo Bahat, will have its World Premiere at Cinéma du Réel 2026 (cinemadureel), the 48th International Documentary Film Festival in Paris, taking place **March 21–28**. This is the first feature film by the duo. THE COW’S COMPLAINT – شكوى البقرة 2026 Egypt, France, United Kingdom 95’ Arabic Synopsis: Ali Al Gazzar – a Sufi sculptor – encounters a visitation at midday. The guest spurs Ali to return to his creations, igniting him with the spiritual imagination of Sufi peasants, peripheral objects and rural animals in Cairo’s City of the Dead. A co-production by **Abdo Zin Eldin**, **Gravegood Production LTD**, and **Supernova Films**. During the festival, the film will screen in **Competition #9**: 📍 Saturday, March 21 — 18:00 Saint-André-des-Arts 3 (screening + discussion & Q&A) 📍 Monday, March 23 — 16:30 L’Arlequin 1 #AbdoZinEldin #Rijksakademie #TheCowsComplaint

This Thursday, GalalaLive performs “O Omnipotent” Live at @centraalmuseum (Utrecht), as part of an evening organized by @le_guess_who and Centraal Laat, surrounding Shertise Solano’s exhibition Move You Fool. Sharing the evening with musicians and sound artists Phantom Wizard, Oumar, Sjoeke-Marije, Jan Verwoert, Indra Diallo, and Carmel Michailidis. 🗓 March 19 ⏰ Event: 18:00 – 22:30 🎤 GalalaLive performance: 21:30 📍 Centraal Museum Utrecht, Tuinzaal (downstairs) @abdudo @date.fka.jochem @cremersroger

We are thrilled to announce that THE COW’S COMPLAINT, the new documentary feature by Mahdy Abo Bahat (@gravegood.mp4 ) and Abdo Zin Eldin (@abdudo ), will have its World Premiere at Cinéma du Réel 2026 (@cinemadureel ), taking place March 21–28 in Paris ✨ A co-production by Gravegood Production LTD, Abdo Zin Eldin and Supernova Films ✊🏼 During the festival, you can catch the film in Competition #9: 📍Saturday, March 21 — 18:00 / Saint-André-des-Arts 3 (screening + discussion & Q&A) 📍Monday, March 23 — 16:30 / L’Arlequin 1 Huge congratulations to the team ☀️
Photography: Abdo Zin Eldin, Mahdy Abo Bahat
Sound: Mahdy Abo Bahat, Panos Chountoulidis
Editing: Mahdy Abo Bahat See you soon in Paris! 🎬

live

An incidental collaboration with @maksud.mondal10 emerged in the recycling bin. Curated and designed by P.A. in concert with the operation crew @rijksakademie

السر في البِرّ.. In virtue, the secret.. (Wood-Clay-Hay-Fabric) 2025 @rijksakademie

Phone Photos from First year presentation @rijksakademie Open Studio 2025 What isn’t real does not necessarily mean it does not exist. A seed that wasn’t watered, A flower that is yet to grow, My beloved, Myself, A daughter I did not have, That dream where I was eaten by a spider Wearing the national military uniform. What wasn’t real might not become real. What has not been yet isn’t what will never happen. What has not been yet is only waiting to be, Because what has been—has been. What has been isn’t what has not been yet.