 |
Al-Ahram Weekly 9 - 15 September 1999 Issue No. 446 
|
||
Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
| ||
|
Al-Ahram Weekly 9 - 15 September 1999 Issue No. 446
|
||
| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
| ||
Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Focus Culture Features Books Special Profile Travel Living Sports People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Reel news
The first Egyptian newsreels were entitled Amoun Film. Four were produced by Mohamed Bayoumi starting in 1923; four issues of Garidat Al-Sharq (The Orient Magazine) were produced by the Prospery Company between 1923 and '25. In 1936, Studio Misr produced the first issue of Garidat Misr Al-Cinema'iya (Egypt's Cinematic Magazine) which was to become Garidat Misr Al-Natiqa (Egypt's Spoken Magazine) with the introduction of voice-over narration in 1937. The subsequent issues of the local newsreel were sparse, irregular and often preceded only films produced by Studio Misr, as the government assumed no responsibility for the information being broadcast. From 1908 until national newsreels made their appearance, the Egyptian audience had only known French and American newsreels such as Pathé, Gaumont and Fox Movietone.
Between 1963 and 1980, newsreels were supervised mainly by the Radio and Television Union, and in 1971 they spent a brief period under the authority of the State Information Service (SIS), returning to its fold in 1980. Over 3,000 bi-monthly newsreel magazines had appeared by the end of 1998. Tubala reminds us that "TV news is an extension of the newsreel in the movie theatres, which is more immediate in that it conveys things as they happen."
"On average, an issue lasts 15 minutes," remarks Abdel-Fattah. "Egypt's newsreels changed neither in form nor in content to respond to political changes. They have always focused on the ruler's visits and meetings, summing up political, economic, social or cultural events that imply the efficiency of the ruling system; even in major social projects and important national events, the presence of the ruler is highlighted. The public remains in the background, dancing, cheering and shouting in support. The activities of political parties or society are never documented, let alone the art scene, including film itself."
In her research, Tubala remarks that documentary material on local TV channels occupies merely 15 per cent of transmission hours; while five per cent of these are given over to football games and 2.5 per cent to political activities -- for example, live coverage of the People's Assembly is rare. Documentary films, mainly used as fill-ins between programmes, use only one per cent of television transmission time, while foreign documentary material in cultural or scientific programmes occupies twice as much.
Tubala adds that documentary material supplied by Western news agencies takes up 40 per cent of Egyptian news time -- a large portion of the total 15 per cent taken up by documentary material in general. "Instead of showing a train crash in Europe or a natural disaster in Asia, television should document similar local occurrences that we only learn about in the papers. Why don't we see Egyptian students demonstrating against normalisation, or workers protesting privatisation? Television's almost exclusive coverage of official events is not necessarily due to pressure from the authorities as there is also a lack of professionalism in TV journalism and a measure of incompetence in covering unexpected events. The quality of television documentary material is very weak: there are pans and tilts, but no tracking shots or clearly defined movements, which proves that the footage is shot routinely with no effort to define its meaning," she protests.
Abdel-Fattah agrees, adding: "Not only is there no live sound in local newsreels, but cinematography is similar to TV in its consistently poor style. The work is done by a single team, which is never provoked by competition. Newsreels are also shown haphazardly in a minority of peripherally located movie-theatres."
El-Qalyoubi concludes that: "It is almost impossible to counterfeit news documentaries. Viewers have become capable of understanding different points of view, and suspense is engendered by the desire to know the 'truth'."
Who, what, where
NCDSF: National Centre For Documentaries and Short Films
ENFC: Egyptian National Film Centre
NTC: Nile Thematic Channels
Hassan Hamed, head of NTC
Gamal El-Sha'er, head of NTC Culture
Afaf Tubala, head of NTC Drama
Madkour Thabet, head of the ENFC
Taghrid El-Asfouri, Attiyat El-Abnoudi, Abdel-Moneim Osman, Abdel-Qader El-Tilmissani: documentary filmmakers
Samir Farid, Essam Zakariya, Mohamed Abdel-Fattah, Mohsen Weifi, Hamdy Abdel-Maqsoud: film critics and researchers
Ahmed Metwalli, Safaa El-Leithi: film editors
