Photo Caption

FILM AFICIONADOS in Cairo have increasingly been finding their thirst for cinema satiated at the downtown centre of the Goethe Institute, writes Negar Azimi. While this week's German film programme at the Goethe is an impressive tribute to the diversity of cinematic idioms coming out of Germany today, it is a mere sampling of the array of film activities that Goethe has been engaging in for the better part of two years.

Curated by independent cultural organiser, Dessouki Said, the German film week that started on the first of the month is a conscious attempt to show Egyptian audiences films that defy trite notions of Germany and Germans at large.

Said, who is the founder and president of the Al-Asala festival in Al-Arish, notes that the five films he has selected manage to convey certain universalities that tie together Egyptians and Germans, among others for that matter.

"We want to defy the stereotyped image of Germans -- that they are machine-like or that they only like to speak their own language," he explained last week on the eve of the programme's opening.

A family split across a sound barrier serves as the departure point for Beyond Silence, one of the featured films in the Goethe's June series. Rich with metaphorical imagery, Beyond Silence is one of the first German films since The American Friend to portray the lives of ordinary Germans -- perhaps even in a banal manner.

Men explores gender relations in contemporary Germany through a dizzying web of jealousy and deception. Characters assume exaggerated archetypal traits while their interactions ultimately reveal the fallacy of static conceptions of gender.

Run Lola Run is director Tom Tykwer's 81-minute kinetically charged film that became an international hit when it came out in 2000. Lola, Tykwer's protagonist, is a contemporary punk Pegasus on an impossible mission to the gather 100,000 marks needed to save her boyfriend's life in just 20 minutes. Presented in real time, Lola's quest is repeated according to three different scenarios, turning traditional narrative techniques on their head and effectively pulling viewers into the Sisyphusian nature of the quest at hand.

In addition to the three aforementioned films, Said has also scheduled screenings of In July and Autumnpink.

While the Goethe's regular film programme, headed by Fawzi Suleiman, continues, the Institute has further supplemented the programme with two additional film initiatives -- one of building a library of contemporary German cinema, the second hosting workshops for young filmmakers.

The latter activity has proven particularly revolutionary in a context in which access and exposure to video is limited. Three on-going workshops have already started -- one focussed on short film production and two centred on constructing scenarios. In addition to a programme of workshops, the Goethe boasts a state of the art media laboratory, with cameras and editing equipment availed to young aspiring film and video makers.

Al-Ahram Weekly Online : 5 -11 June 2003 (Issue No. 641)
Located at: http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2003/641/cu4.htm