Issue No. 610
Culture
Previous issue
Site map
|
|
31 Oct. - 6 Nov. 2002 Issue No. 610 Culture |
Current issue Previous issue Site map | |
| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 | Recommend this page | ||
On time, as arranged
The 26th round of the Cairo Film Festival ended last Friday. Amina Elbendary watched as the lights went out
The Cairo International Film Festival ended its current round amid the usual fanfare and decorations at the Cairo Opera House. This round, though, had a new director -- Cherif El-Shoubashi -- to celebrate, alongside promises to jumpstart what had become an increasingly derelict annual extravaganza.
Click to view captionEl-Shoubashi's official position -- undersecretary for foreign cultural relations at the Ministry of Culture -- implies that, this time round, the festival was receiving adequate state support, the absence of which had been a long-standing complaint from previous festival director, Hussein Fahmi, though it may well also suggest a diminution of independence.
Some traditions, though, have a guaranteed longevity: not least the complaints of the audience. They wanted, as they always have, more and newer films. But to the credit of its organisers, this year's festival attracted films from traditions other than the mainstream. Alongside 20 films in competition, CIFF included several programmes -- official films out of competition, the festival of festivals, the information section, tributes to Michael Cacoyannis, Alain Corneau, Marin Karmitz, Merchant/Ivory, and Carlos Saura, alongside spotlights on women behind the camera, Finnish and Icelandic films, Indian cinema, Arab cinema, and African cinema in the 1990s.
Screenings were almost always according to schedule -- another improvement on past rounds -- suggesting that last minute substitutions are well on their way to being relics of a past age. This reviewer, though, remained unsure whether to be pleased or disappointed that the two Palestinian films she saw at the same movie theatre in Madinet Nasr were screened, on the dot, even though in both cases there only four viewers in the hall.
The paucity of Arab films on show may well have come as a surprise. Aside from the two Egyptian films in competition (His Excellency the Minister and Adam's Autumn), there were the Palestinian films A Ticket to Jerusalem (in competition), Jerusalem Another Day: Rana's Wedding, the Syrian film Two Moons and an Olive (the latter two constituting the spotlight on new Arab cinema) and the Moroccan Une Minute Du Soleil En Moins (in competition). This is, after all, the largest film festival in the Arab world. A sad comment on the state of Arab production, then, as well as an underlining of the disappointing lack of commercial appeal of Arab films in Cairo. Disappointing too, though this time in terms of coordination, was the overlap with the Carthage Film Festival, which left many Arab filmmakers at a loss as to which festival to attend.
Rashid Masharawi's A Ticket to Jerusalem jointly won the Silver Pyramid. The film, which centres on a Palestinian couple living in Qalandiya refugee camp, aptly portrays the daily trials of Palestinians under occupation. The husband, Gabr (Ghassan Abbas) owns a film projector with which he travels to Palestinian refugee camps and cities screening cartoons to school children. His wife Sanaa (Arin Omari) is a paramedic with the Palestinian Red Crescent. Gabr faces daily obstacles travelling with his projector from one city to another. Israeli roadblocks and soldiers prevent him from moving in or out. Indeed, both Sanaa and Gabr spend most of their days at roadblocks with emergency cases often prevented from reaching the hospital in time because of the delays. The occupation also pressures the couple in other ways: Gabr's parents urge him to follow his brother and emigrate to Canada while Sanaa, ironically, wants to return to Beirut to live with her family in the Ain Al-Helwa refugee camp where she grew up. Ain Al-Helwa would be more like home, we are refugees in our own country anyway, she argues. Whereas Gabr takes his work seriously, others dismiss it: people can't find food, they argue, and you're worrying about films. And in that one feels the dilemmas facing Masharawi himself (who also wrote the script) and inevitably all Palestinian artists: there is a need to validate art in the midst of national catastrophe.
The climax is a proposed screening of Palestinian films in occupied Jerusalem, the heart of the Palestinian cause. The screening is set in the courtyard of a schoolteacher's house but Gabr faces another obstacle in addition to travel restrictions. The house has been occupied by Israeli settlers who have confined the schoolteacher and her mother to only one room of the house. And yet the group manage to hold the screening and the settlers are themselves relegated to the upper stories.
The other Palestinian film shown at CIFF was sadly not part of the competition. Hani Abu-Asaad's Jerusalem Another Day: Rana's Wedding won the acclaim of critics in Cairo. Like Masharawi's Ticket, the film takes place against the backdrop of roadblocks and tanks. Rana defies her autocratic, unsympathetic father (whom the director thankfully allows only one shot in the film, thereby diminishing the actual power of his patriarchal authority) and insists on marrying the man she loves, a theatre director and actor, Khalil. The events of the film take place during half a day, hours charged with the reality of Palestinian existence. Even though, unlike Masharawi's film, the atrocities of occupation are not the focus of the film, which is ostensibly about Rana's wedding, they are constantly present. Running from home at six in the morning Rana comes across a group of threatening IDF soldiers in a deserted alleyway: they aim their rifles at her before realising that all she has in her hand is her mobile phone. As the couple and Khalil's best friend go searching for a marriage clerk they are again stopped at roadblocks, and then come across a Palestinian funeral. When Rana forgets a plastic bag with some of her belongings on a sidewalk, policeman quickly cordon the area and detonate the plastic bag.
The realities of life under occupation do not, however, obstrude on the humanity of the characters. When Rana's father finally agrees under pressure to the marriage, Rana is scared. Scared by the prospects before her she runs to her friend Mary and while her friend comforts her the house next door is being demolished by Israeli bulldozers. A normal Tuesday afternoon in Jerusalem.
The seminar on Problems and Perspectives of Film Production in the South, held alongside the festival, discussed means to upgrade the cinema industry in the south. Participants included Marco Solari, president of Locarno Festival, Dimitri Sofianopoulos, head of the Greek Film Center, and Robert Sole of Le Monde newspaper. The case of India was seen as an exemplar of the problems discussed: "Although India is one of the largest film producing nations in the world, with 1,013 films in 2001 and some 4.5 billion rupees in revenues in 2000 through exports, films are subject to various taxes (entertainment tax, new taxation release tax, show tax and property tax)," Manav Jalan of the Guarang Films company in India explained. These taxes, he noted, hinder the growth of the industry and encourage viewers to switch to TV and piracy, which loses Indian cinema an estimated 3.6 billion rupees a year. Interestingly enough the Japanese distributor Kiomasa Kawakita offered to distribute Egyptian and Arab films abroad while Dimitri Sofianopoulos, head of the state-run Greek Film Centre, called for co-productions with other countries of the South and suggested the project begin in Egypt, with a series of documentary films about the relation between ancient Greek and Egyptian civilisations. Egyptian and Arab producers and distributors were noticeably absent from the seminar.
CIFF may well have been a more subdued affair this year, but this is not necessarily to be lamented. In recompense came better organisation. More international guests of the festival actually accepted their invitations and made it to Cairo. The festival was also more inclusive, screening works from various international trends, including Scandinavia and African cinema.
The inclusive trend is one that will continue and grow in coming years even as the festival strives to bring newer films. It is a trend that was also reflected in the jury's decisions (see box). This year's jury, headed by Ismail Merchant, was also a triumph. The members of the jury, Merchant said at the closing ceremony, had displayed a remarkable bond of friendship and harmony. The festival itself, he added, is a testament to human understanding in such chaotic times, times in which human beings should not lose sight of their strength.
Additional reporting by Mustafa El-Minshawi
And the winners are:
1- Best Arabic Film: Adam's Autumn, director Mohamed Kamel El-Qalyoubi (Egypt, 2002)2- Best Artistic Contribution: Evagoras' Vow, director Andreas Pantzis (Greece, 2001)
3- Naguib Mahfouz Prize for Best Second Work: I am Sam, director Jessie Nelson (USA, 2001)
4- Saadeddin Wahba Prize for Best Script: Hejar, scriptwriter and director Handdan Ipekgi (Turkey, 2001)
5- Best Director: This My Land, Mrinal Sen (India, 2002)
6- Best Actor: Ahmed Zaki, His Excellency the Minister, director Samir Seif (Egypt, 2002)
7- Best Actress: Katayoun Riahi, The Last Supper, director Fereydoun Jeyrani (Iran, 2002)
8- Silver Pyramid (presented to the director): Hejar and A Ticket to Jerusalem, director Rashid Masharawi (Palestine and Holland, 2002)
9- Golden Pyramid (presented to the producer): The Last Blues, director Peter Gàrdos, producers Tivoli Film Productions and Gambit Productions (Hungary, 2002)
|
 |
|
|||||||||||||||||
| ARCHIVES Letter from the Editor Editorial Board Subscription Advertise! |
WEEKLY ONLINE: weekly.ahram.org.eg Updated every Thursday at 20.00 GMT, 10 pm local time weeklyweb@ahram.org.eg |
 Al-Ahram Organisation |
