Issue No. 612
Culture
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14 - 20 November 2002 Issue No. 612 Culture |
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In progress: In search of a niche
Hala Galal earned a BA in mass communications at Cairo University in 1988 and graduated from the Higher Institute of Cinema in 1994. She has directed several documentaries and short films, many of them profiles, including novelist Bahaa Taher, sculptor Adam Henein and actress Abla Kamel. More recently she participated in the founding and management of Semat, an independent film production company. She also works in Egyptian Television's satellite Specialised Channels and with the French channel TV5.
My current projects? Well, I continue to participate in Semat. I have begun a new documentary, produced jointly by Egyptian Television and TV5; it's a 30-minute profile of psychiatrist Yehya El-Rakhawi. I am also in the process of preparing a short fiction film -- to be produced by Semat. But I'd rather not talk about this because it is still in the process of being made.
As for Semat, I am a founding member of the group. That means I am one of those who read the scripts submitted to us and decide which films to produce. The setup is completely democratic, so I am not the most, or the least, important member. I do my share of administrative work; and believe me we have a lot of that on our hands. I also coordinate script-writing and experimental filmmaking workshops; and I've done my share of executive production, working on two films: Al-Bab (The Door), a documentary by Abdel-Fattah Gamal; and Alwan Al-Hob (Colours of Love), a short fiction film by Ahmed Ghanem. There is nothing in particular that I want to stop doing. Certain things are more enjoyable than others -- and preferable insofar as I see my role as principally that of a filmmaker; this is certainly the career I have chosen. But I feel that as a young filmmaker whose orientation is not commercially slanted a project such as Semat is essential. Because it is the availability of such alternative frameworks that allows work of this kind to be made. And in carving out a space for young artists I am also, in the process, carving out a space for myself. The company also provides an opportunity for us to be in contact with filmmakers from the same generation. And we're hoping to provide equal opportunities for everyone.
The challenge is to realise your imagination within the means at your disposal, which means, basically, that you must adjust your imagination to very low budgets. It is a two-sided condition, this limit on funding: it can be a creative incentive, and it can completely destroy ideas. But it is a reality that you have to confront: so long as you're not going to produce a massively commercial feature that will bring in LE80 million or whatever, no producer is going to provide you with the money; and so you have to make do with what's available.
This is the most difficult obstacle facing the filmmaker, funding; and it's not just a matter of his or her own income: very often the problem is that technical or artistic aspects of the film require serious amounts of money. I want to make the film that I really want to make, and I am simply not concerned about commercial success per se; it's not as if I am running for election. Certainly the kind of second-rate Hollywood imitations that are being made now do not appeal to me. But it's not true that young filmmakers engage in experimental and alternative activities because they can't do otherwise. In fact now is a time full of great opportunities for young filmmakers to undertake well-funded, fully fledged commercial features; many of them already have. So it's not true that there are no opportunities within the commercial arena; the truth is that there are no opportunities that suit me.
I was initially drawn to Yehya El-Rakhawi through reading his books. He writes a political article in Al-Wafd, which I've read with relish for a very long time. Besides being a major psychiatrist he's an accomplished writer who produces short stories and poetry as well as nonfiction; and he was a member of Naguib Mahfouz's group of intellectuals, Harafish, which met regularly on Fridays. He also made a significant contribution to the development of Arabic psychiatric terminology and methodology, his contention being that a psychiatric literature specific to Egypt should be developed to deal with specifically Egyptian psychological problems. What also attracted my attention is that he was one of very few physicians to have artistic interests. And my expectations were satisfied in that he turned out to be a charismatic character, his charisma comes through, impacts on the feelings of everyone he deals with -- fellow doctors, patients, his friends and children. At some level, in finding out about this, I was vindicated. It's not totally clear yet how cooperative he will turn out to be. Good will notwithstanding, it isn't always clear in what way people will be cooperative: Bahaa Taher, for example, was extremely cooperative on the level of going places and changing the way he dressed etc., facilitating the actual filming, but he found it very difficult to talk about himself; Henein was the opposite, finding it easy to open up but often objecting to the necessary things that the logistics of filming involve. Maybe El-Rakhawi will turn out to be somewhere in between.
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