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Al-Ahram Weekly 6 - 12 April 2000 Issue No. 476 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 6 - 12 April 2000 Issue No. 476
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Summit Features Focus Travel Living Sports Profile People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Frenzied resignation
By Khairiya El-Bishlawi
The first Festival of Arab Cinema, held in Bahrain between 25-31 March, ended quietly, leaving Egypt with the best film (Atif Hatata's Closed Doors) as well as the best screenplay and best soundtrack awards (Dawoud Abdel-Sayed's Fear Land). A major event that was widely anticipated and well-prepared -- the Bahraini Cineclub and Ministry of Information, as well as a large number of companies and institutions provided sponsorship and support -- the festival accurately reflected the reality of Arab cinema, shedding disturbing light on the wiles and guiles, the present and future, of this important arena.
Egyptian film still remains central to the region's cinematic map, evidenced as much by the stellar presence of Egyptian actors as by the fact that the festival opened and closed with an Egyptian feature (Mohamed Abu-Seif's First Grade and Inas El-Dighiedi's Night Divulgements). In effect, alas, such participation was generally less about the innovative exchange of ideas than the ceaseless turning of the wheels of glamour. Actor Gamil Ratib was virtually the only figure among many (including actor Hussein Fahmi in his capacity as head of the Cairo Film Festival) whose activities penetrated the surface, transcending appearance and contributing to content. In the seminars and subsidiary events -- perhaps a logical consequence of Egypt's predominance in the festival -- Egyptian cinema was attacked by many of those who attended, contributing as much undue pontification as expert, or not so expert, experience.
At least the ceremonies and events were always busy -- a fact that, given the almost complete emptiness of the movie theatres on all but the weekend nights of the festival's duration, gave the festival the aspect of a tourist gathering devoid of intellectual or artistic import. While the five-star hotels were teeming with stars, officials and businessmen, the theatres were full only on the weekend, and even then the viewers were youths drawn by curiosity rather than an audience with a genuine interest in the cinema. A far cry indeed from what an Arab Film Festival should be, made all the more disturbing by the fact that these films had previously been screened commercially or in other festivals.
From top: Strangers' Sand; West Beirut; Moroccan filmmaker Farida Ben-Yazid's Kied Al-Nisaa'; Gwayel Al-Romman
Yet the crowded hotels and empty theatres did not prevent the festival from achieving some of its desired objectives. Besides the honouring of Algerian filmmaker Ahmed Rashdi, the festival became a platform for inaugurating the Gulf Filmmakers' Association, an institution that the purveyors of cinema in the Gulf states, to whom Bahrain is the most important cinematic pivot, have been contemplating for a long time. Headed by Khalid Al-Siddiq, the Kuwaiti director who made the first ever Kuwaiti film some 30 years ago, the association hopes to create an indigenous film industry in the Gulf. While the Gulf's many state-of-the-art theatres screen mainly American and Egyptian films, the region has no real cinematic tradition to build on for the future.
In this way Gulf filmmakers continue to dream of an independent industry, while the first major festival held in the region showcases work from other countries.
Of the 12 films participating in the official competition and the 16 films making up the parallel "panorama" screenings, four films had the word Beirut in their titles and in some sense dealt with the Lebanese Civil War. Lebanese filmmaker Ziyad Douwieri's West Beirut, which was awarded the "viewers' prize", poignantly celebrates the lives of ordinary individuals residing in Beirut at the outbreak of war in 1975, combining laughter, narrative and self-referential imagery in a mesmerising display of cinematic prowess. That the best-film award went to the young Egyptian Atif Hatata can only be explained by the inevitable and inexplicable politics of prize giving which for the most part has nothing to do with genuinely cinematic considerations.
The Maghreb's eight contributions exemplify the kind of Arab cinema showcased in the festival in that they reflect post-independence political and social realities, though, to varying extents, they also reflect the involvement of the French sponsors and producers who provided a significant portion of the funding needed to make them. Algerian filmmaker Porlam Kerjo's debut, "Living in Paradise" -- winner of the best director award and another candidate for the best-film award -- evokes the lives of Arab immigrants living in France immediately prior to independence with an exceptional eye for detail.
The screening of Iraqi filmmaker Mohamed Shukri Jamil's 1979 "The Fences", though powerful in itself, served only as a saddening reminder of the detrimental state of life in Iraq where Shukri has been unable to make any films since. In fact the predominant tune was one of repetition and regress. Both Algerian filmmaker Mirzaq Alwash's Algeria, Beirut, Memory and Tunisian filmmaker Mahmoud Ben-Mahmoud's Gwayel Al-Romman were less impressive than these filmmakers' last films and offered nothing new in style or content despite their profound themes. Syria's two contributions (Samir Thukri's historical film, Strangers' Sand and Abdel-Latif Abdel-Hamid's Naseem Al-Roh), though powerful, raised questions about the best actor and best editing awards, which went to the latter (Bassam Kossa) and the former respectively, though neither was particularly remarkable.
Topics like the viability of a Gulf film industry, the possibility of cooperation with Iran and the absence of an audience imbued the seminars and discussions with equally monotonous shades, confirming the feeling that a truly rewarding Arab film festival, however well planned, cannot be achieved without a truly powerful Arab cinema -- in terms of both quality and quantity. Yet it remains to be said that the festival, if it achieved nothing else, provided a comprehensive window on the Arab film scene, one that sheds adequate, if ultimately unsettling light.
