Cabaret Crusades: The Horror Show File offers a view on the history of the Crusades, retracing events that unfolded over a period of four years (1096-1099) and played a key role in subsequent historical developments, shaking to the core the Arab world and its relations with the West.The film is a translation of causes and effects of the religiously sanctioned military campaigns in the form of images based on a reconstruction of events seen through the eyes of those who had to confront the invasion. Shawky provides a precise description of the places in the Middle East and Europe that formed the backdrop for the early Crusades. To bring these episodes alive, he uses highly expressive 200-year-old marionettes from the Lupi collection in Turin.