18 - 24 October 2001
Issue No.556
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 18 - 24 October 2001 Issue No.556 |
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Say cheese
Amina Elbendary zooms in
It was with considerably subdued pomp and splendour that the 25th round of the Cairo International Film Festival began on the ninth. Perhaps because this is after all the silver jubilee, perhaps because festival president Hussein Fahmi spends the whole year drumming up expectations and continuously alluding to hidden surprises up his sleeve, perhaps because in this gloomy political atmosphere a breath of fresh cinema is strongly needed, no matter what the rationale, one expected something more of the festival this year. Instead audiences are disappointed.
The tone was quite clear at the opening ceremony when even the Main Hall of the Cairo Opera House was, unlike every other year, not full to capacity. Given the tumultuous political background the international movie stars who were invited to the festival and the ceremony did not show up. The festival's guest of honour Danny Glover apologised. That was the first blow. The greatest surprise of the ceremony was that Egyptian actress Youssra hosted the night. Thankfully the foreign members of the jury managed to make it. This year's jury is headed by Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami and includes Huang Jianxin from China, Angleo Libirtini from Italy, Eva Paraki from Hungary, Helma Sanders from Germany, Peter Scarlet from the US, Mamata Shankar from India and finally Lebleba and Samir Seif from Egypt.
Kiarostami was honoured by the festival at the opening ceremony and scenes from his film Taste of Cherry were screened. The festival also honoured Egyptian director Tawfiq Saleh. A short documentary with scenes from his films and personal photographs was shown during the ceremony. Saleh is held in high esteem and revered as one of the pioneers of realist cinema in Egypt. He has, however, directed only a handful of films including Darb Al-Mahabil (Idiots' Path) in 1955, Sira' Al-Abtal (Heroes' Struggle) in 1961, his most celebrated film Al-Mutamaridun (The Rebels) in 1966, Yawmiyat Na'ib fi Al-Aryaf (Diaries of a Provincial Prosecutor) in 1968, Al- Makhdu'un (The Deceived) in 1971 and Al- Ayam Al-Tawila (The Long Days) in 1973.
The whole round was supposedly a round in honour of late Egyptian actor and filmmaker Anwar Wagdi, though what this boiled down to was really just mentioning Wagdi's name as well as his one time child protégé, actress Fairouz. Wagdi is to many the epitome of the filmmaker. He started out small and his career came to include almost all aspects of moviemaking: acting, producing, and directing. His films remain amongst the classics of Egyptian cinema and it is a pity that this tribute did not involve a reconsideration of his contribution to the budding cinema industry, a contribution often dismissed since his films are considered by many as rather "light." Meanwhile, Fairouz, long absent, was whisked back to the limelight.
The whole logic of "honouring" filmmakers is elusive. As far as the organizers seem to be concerned it simply involves handing out a plaque to the recipient at the opening ceremony to a background of heavy applause. Honouring Kiarostami, Saleh, Wagdi and even Fairouz, could -- one might suppose -- have involved a retrospective of these artists' films and works. Instead, their films are not shown on the fringe of the festival and there were no symposia organised to discuss these or their impact on Arab and world cinema. This is a pity, especially that Cairene audiences have absolutely no resources whatsoever to be acquainted with any of Kiarostami's films for example. What is also baffling is that none of the honoured director's films were shown within the "Spotlight on the Iranian Cinema." In fact the only filmmaker offered an exclusive tribute is French director Jean-Paul Rappeneau.
On opening night the festival showed the French production Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amelie, directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunnet and starring Audrey Tautou and Mathieu Kassovitz.
In addition to the official competition the festival also includes an "Official Section" (out of competition) a "Festival of Festivals" section, and a "Media Section." Yet just what these sections are about or how films are placed in a given category as opposed to another section is not at all clear. Other sections are more specialised, offering focused retrospectives of non- Western international cinema. These include the "International Francophone Agency," the aforementioned "Spotlight on the Iranian Cinema," "The New Generation of Chinese Cinema" and a "Panorama of Greek Film Directors born in Egypt." These specialised sections offer a welcome window onto non-American international cinema, a window not open throughout the year with the established monopoly American films have in our movie theatres.
Since this is the silver jubilee audiences had every right to expect a more comprehensive overview of Arab cinema within the "25 Years of Arabic Cinema" section. Unfortunately this section is showing only four films.
Only one Egyptian film is showing this year: Inas El-Deghedi's Mudhakarrat Murahiqa (Diaries of a Teenage Girl). Filmmakers Radwan El-Kashef and Dawoud Abdel-Sayed are rumoured to have refused to premier their latest works, Al-Sahir (The Magician) and Muwatin wa Mukhbir wa Harami (A Citizen, An Informant and A Thief) at the Cairo festival, saving them instead for the Damascus International Film Festival.
In an interesting change of policy the festival organisers have agreed to reduce ticket prices from LE15 to LE10 in an obvious attempt to lure more audiences to the venues. Yet the usual nuisances of the Cairo Film Festival remain: the films shown are too often not the ones announced on the programme and the programme itself has changed several times since the opening. After 25 years of organising such an event, and when venues have been reduced to a meagre ten, it is still too much to ask that organisers stick to a schedule.
This year Fahmi has also launched a film market alongside the festival. Initially intended to offer a space introducing filmmakers to the latest cinema equipment as well as to provide an opportunity for the selling and renting of films, the equipment idea quickly flopped. But hopefully the market will remain with the festival in the coming years.
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