Issue No. 605
Culture
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26 Sept. - 2 October 2002 Issue No. 605 Culture |
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 | Recommend this page | ||
In progress: A change of plan
Kamla Abu Zekri graduated from the Cinema Institute in 1994. She has worked as assistant director to some 20 well-known filmmakers, including Radwan El-Kashef, Atef El-Tayib and Nader Galal. In 1998 she made one short film, Qatr Al-Saa'a Setta (The Six O'Clock Train), which received six local and international awards. The next year she made a documentary about Palestinian businessmen in Egypt. More recently she became a founding member of "Semat" an independent young filmmakers' company that produces short films on digital video format.
In the last few weeks I've been engaged in three projects as well as the administrative work of "Semat". This is not necessarily very hard work but my priority is that it should be fulfilling. When I first entered the film arena, I was working as an assistant director with a view to becoming a filmmaker myself. My aspiration was to make my own full-length feature, a mainstream film, as it were. But circumstances prompted me to move in a slightly different direction. I feel I can wait till there is an opportunity to do the mainstream film I'd like to do. It's true I've received offers, scripts. But they were all, at bottom, inappropriate. They were not the kind of thing I would want or be able to do. I continue to work as assistant director, but that is a question of breadwinning -- life must go on, as it were. For professional fulfilment, on the other hand, I'd rather be part of "Semat" until circumstances permit me to enter the mainstream on my own terms.
So there is the workaday assistant director business -- that's merely necessary -- and then there is the work I enjoy. We have already produced five short films. And one of the three projects I've been telling you about is a short film I've just completed shooting: Ayna Yaqif Allah (Where Does God Stand). The issue with both "Semat" and that film, you see, was largely a matter of digital vs. traditional film. I used to feel that traditional film was intrinsically better, that in switching to digital one gave up something or somehow compromised one's position. Working on that film, on the other hand, and developing a deeper understanding of the circumstances with which a young independent filmmaker is confronted, I realise now that digital is simply something else, another medium altogether. I continue to love traditional film -- no doubt about that -- but I've grown to love digital too, for what it really is. They're two different media and I love them both. That makes me think that "Semat" as a whole, the idea of young filmmakers pooling energy to produce films within the limitations of their means, is a viable project and one that has a future.
Ayna Yaqif Allah is basically about the way people use religion as an excuse to perpetuate conventions, with particular reference to the relationship between a boy and a girl. Religion is there, life is there. But too often in societies like this one, what you get is an illogical and unfair intermingling of the two. The script was written by Nasser Abdel-Rahman, who is an old friend and Institute colleague. All the actors are new to the screen, which is the way I prefer it to be anyway. This is my first experience with digital, and I was very reluctant to undertake it at first. Now that I have, however, many doubts have been resolved in my mind. This really is the way forward for the alternative, which may, in turn, develop its own milieu -- its own theatres and figures and associations. We're trying to find markets for our productions -- we're looking in independent film centres and festivals around the world; and we may well try out satellite television channels, too. A milieu for short films, yes; that is what we are working towards.
I'm also working as executive director on a full-length feature with another friend and colleague, Ahmed Atef. It's a script by Ahmed El- Beih; and it will be filmed entirely in Hurghada. This is an example of work that, while lying within the parameters of the mainstream, still offers some degree of professional fulfilment. But part of the process of pooling energy is thus supporting the relatively young. I'm also working on a new full-length script with Nasser Abdel- Rahman, now that our initial collaborative project has been postponed indefinitely. We're basically looking for ideas, even though too many ideas have already been circulating. The point is not so much to know exactly what you're doing and go ahead with it but to realise a cinematic vision of your own. None of this conflicts with being part of "Semat" and I think that, in the end, we're all working towards integrating what we do into the wider scope of cinematic endeavour. And this -- my chosen vocation, if you like -- is what I enjoy. It's why I moved away from the path of assistant director and onto that of the alternative.
Other than cinema, I can't think of much that I'm doing with myself. All I can see is that I have a daughter, a little girl whom I love.
Based on an interview by
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