Inspired by the famous opera Aida, NOTHING ESCAPES MY EYES speaks metaphorically to contemporary issues of cultural identity, loss, and the pressure to conform. The film refers to the following historical event: Aida premiered in Cairo in 1871 at the Khedivial Opera House, which was completely destroyed by fire one hundred years later and replaced by a multi- story parking garage. Nevertheless, to this day the place is still named Opera Square: Meidan El Opera.

This urban alteration is combined with the painful transformation of a woman in the process of shedding one identity for another. The opera’s original storyline, in which Aida struggles between her desire to assimilate to Egyptian culture and the pressure to remain loyal
to her country and cultural identity, takes on current issues of displace- ment and disorientation in light of colonialist history and contemporary globalization.