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Al-Ahram Weekly 17 - 23 June 1999 Issue No. 434 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 17 - 23 June 1999 Issue No. 434
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Profile Features Living Travel Sports Time Out Chronicles People Cartoons Letters Grasping the nettle
By Hani Mustafa
Young film-makers, whether directors, editors or cinematographers, have until recently been able to make their professional debuts only after working for a long time -- sometimes for over a decade -- as assistants. The chance to make their own films arrives after years during which their individual creativity has been put on hold. And the result, more often than not, is that when, finally, they come to make a film of their own the overwhelming presence of commercial constraints means that it will be conventional both in terms of form and content.
In the early 90s, there began to be signs that this situation was changing. Director Fouad El-Tohami established a Cinema Magazine Section at the National Cinema Centre of which director Hashem El-Nahhas was president. This magazine presented documentary films, no longer than five minutes, directed by recent film school graduates. Soon the name of the section changed to the Cinema Magazine and Films by Youth Unit, and expanded its presentations to include short features up to nine minutes long.
The documentaries and short features presented by this unit were experimental. Between 1990 and 1995 this unit gleaned many prizes at the Ismailia International Documentary and Short Feature Film Festival. But with the retirement of Hashem El-Nahhas and Fouad El-Tohami, the shrinking of the unit's budget and the cessation of the Ismailia Festival, such activity almost came to an end.
Once more, it looked like young film-makers would have to produce conventional films to be able to get a foothold in the cinema industry. That is, until the Thematic Channels Sector, headed by Hassan Hamed, adopted the same spirit to attract young film-makers.
"I am convinced," Hassan Hamed says, "that creativity has no age. We are trying to enrich the artistic scene with new ideas and new styles. Some young people come with brilliant, high quality work, while others come with works which show a lack of experience. But always, with the young, there is enthusiasm, passion and daring."
The main aim of the Thematic Channels Sector is not profit but to present a distinctive and new televisual service.
"We take it as our responsibility to present experimental trends and this is what drove us to focus so much of our attention on the young. This is what distinguishes us from all other production sectors of the Radio and Television Union, sectors which we complement rather than with which we compete. And though no single generation has a monopoly on experimentation still, the younger the generation, the more daring it will tend to be."
Abu Zeid is a young director who graduated from the Radio Section of the Faculty of Mass Communications and then studied film in the US. His 35 minute film El-Hawi is an attempt to document the details of the lives of Egyptian magicians, a notoriously closed community.
"My first problem", he says, "was to find this community. And then there was the problem of how to present this community without the issue becoming one of the poor and the marginal and without the film becoming a touristic presentation of an exotic periphery. I tried, therefore, to present members of this community as first and foremost human beings."
These days, young film director Abdel-Fattah Kamal is shooting his 30 minute short feature, Istimal Mohandiss (Using an Engineer), his second film produced by the Thematic Channels, his first being a 40 minute documentary about the Suez Canal titled Rasm Morour Amin.
Abdel-Fattah Kamal says: "A few years ago, before the channels took their current shape, I presented the scenario directly to Hassan Hamed. Hamed likes to consult with professionals or academics who do not work for television to take their opinion about the scenario presented to him, even if he himself has reservations about the scenario." Based on his experience Abdel-Fattah Kamal feels that the budgets of the films produced by the Thematic Channels Sector are reasonable and workable even if, when compared to the private sector, they seem small.
While many film-makers feel that the opportunity for experimentation offered by the Thematic Channels Sector should be exploited to its fullest, Abdel-Fattah Kamal disagrees: "If these channels," he argues, "do not seek profit to the same extent as do other producers, still the audience should be taken into consideration. Just because the Thematic Channels provide an opportunity for experimentation, this does not mean I should ignore any component of the audience, even that which is least educated."
Within the framework of this spirit of experimentation, The Nile Channel for Drama has established a Short Story Studio. Afaf Tubbala, its president, explains: "It would have been naive of us to
compete with other production sectors in the field of dramatic works. That is why we thought of a new kind of short film that would bring about a marriage between literature and audio-visual art. Our experiment was to have a director present a story exactly the way it is narrated, without any mediation beyond that dictated by the medium. The image would simply amplify and confirm the narrator's voice." The Nile Channel for Drama also produces five to 10 minute 16mm features. "Our goal," Tubbala says, "is to satisfy the viewer, and not merely to fill a time slot."
Director Hala Galal, who made a film based on Bahaa Taher's short story Fi Hadiqa Gheir Adiya (In an Unusual Garden), says of her experience with the Short Story Studio:
"I was given a travel grant by the Swiss organisation Pro Helvetia to do research for a documentary film I was planning to make. When Hassan Hamed asked me to use this travel opportunity to also do some work for the Thematic Channels, I made a 35 minute documentary film titled Rihla (A Voyage) for the Nile Channel for Drama which revolved around an interview with Bahaa Taher about expatriate creativity, and for the Short Story Studio I made the 25 minute In an Unusual Garden. The Thematic Channels covered some expenses but the rest was self-financed, with some help from Swiss friends."
In addition to continuing with its laudable efforts in the field of documentaries and short features, the Thematic Channels plans to enter the arena of commercial cinema with the same spirit of
adventure and daring. Hassan Hamed explains: "Till now, our productions are limited to television channels and private screenings for the critics but we hope in the future to produce long features to be screened first in cinemas and then shown on television."
The importance of all these projects lies in the fact that they give young film-makers an outlet for their creative impulse. "At the same time that we give young film-makers opportunities," Hassan Hamed says, "the Thematic Channels themselves benefit and develop. The field of cinema is widened with the introduction of these new elements with the ultimate aim of developing prevalent cinematic artistic and technical modes."
