As has become the norm, the opening ceremony of the Cairo Film Festival witnessed faults of poor organisation, the worst of which by far was the chaos during the announcements to honour Spain, guest of honour of this year’s festival.
Imbued with boredom, the audience rose and left the hall in droves. They left before the Spanish culture minister Cesar Antonio Molina Sanchez was welcomed; even before the Spanish actors and actresses were honoured—and whoever introduced them forgot to mention their names. Had the Egyptian minister of culture, Farouk Hosni, not acted wisely, asking the audience to wait and listen to the Spanish minister, the matter would have been turned into a tasteless farce.
Real-life problem
By the time the opening Spanish film Return to Hansala, directed by Chus Giutierrez, was due for screening, most of the audience who had come to celebrate the festival had left the hall. The choice of opening film was felicitous, since its subject matches a real Egyptian problem, that of illegal immigration and how easy it is for would-be-immigrants to drown in the dangerous sea crossing. The film depicts the harrowing experience of Laila, whose brother, Rasheed, drowns while attempting to reach Spain, and her struggle to bring his body back to their Moroccan village of Hansala to give him an Islamic burial. In the process, she has to pay huge sums of money to the Spanish undertaker who manages the operation, a fact that is doubly heartbreaking since her brother had left in the first place for lack of money. The film won the festival’s Gold Pyramid, the best film prize.
Window on African cinema
With 150 films from 52 countries, the festival offered a wide array of cinematic works. Sixty years after the international declaration for human rights was promulgated, the festival allocated a special section for films concerned with human rights issues.
Another section entitled “Window on the African Cinema” screened six films. Guinea presented Il va Pleuvoir sur Conakry (It will rain over Conakry) and Changing Faces, while Malawi chimed in with Seasons of Life and Mozambique with Sleepwalking Land.
On the sideline, a seminar was held on “African Cinema… an invitation to break the isolation” was held to discuss the problems facing African cinema, among which is the domination of Hollywood and its eclipse of other genres, including films from Africa.
The Day We Met
After a difficult search for a suitable film to represent Egypt in the international competition, the festival management announced its choice of The Day We Met, directed by Ismail Murad and written by Taghreed al-Asfouri.
Theoretically the film does not fit the international level for its many technical faults yet, despite its being a rather weak production, the story represents a touching human condition.
Zeinab, masterfully played by Lebleba, and Youssef, played by Mahmoud Hemeida, have met several years after they first fell in love when they lived in the same neighbourhood. They meet by pure chance in the house of an old neighbour Umm Nassif, who lives alone since both her sons Adel and Nassif have immigrated. The film excels in not highlighting the fact that Umm Nassif is a Copt in any conspicuous manner, but leaving the viewer to understand this in a subtle way—a point that is absolutely realistic. Umm Nassif asks Zeinab and Youssef to take her to the nursing home to visit her sister. On the journey they pass through a gamut of attitudes, but as they arrive they find that the sister had died three years before and that, their neighbour, an Alzheimer’s sufferer, had forgotten about it.
The music gave the film a tender hint of melancholy.
Indian vs Swiss
The prize of LE100,000 for Best Arabic Film went to the Egyptian film Basra, directed and written by Ahmed Rashwan. It shared the prize with the Palestinian film Laila’s Birthday directed by Rashid Masharawi. For its technical effects Basra deserved to represent Egypt instead of The Day We Met.
Basra belongs to the autobiographical film genre, reviewing a relationship between three friends: a photojournalist, an AD-director, and a tourism employee, and how the war in Iraq had an impact on each of them. The word “Basra” with its Egyptian meaning of ‘coincidence’ was manifested through acts which coincide with the falling of Basra in Iraq.
The prize for the best Artistic Contribution went to the Swiss comedy Tandoori Love, the story of an Indian chef who falls in love with a Swiss girl who works at the same restaurant. His ‘chaotic’ love wins the girl over, defeating the ‘well-ordered’ love of her Swiss fiancé.
Mark of an angel
The French film Mark of an Angel, directed by Safy Nebbou, won the best second work for a director (Naguib Mahfouz Prize). The film tells the story of a mother who loses her baby five days after birth when the hospital burns down.
Six years later, the mother moves to Paris. Her neighbours are a small family: a husband, wife, son and daughter. Once the mother sees her neighbour’s daughter, she insists it is her own and doggedly follows the small family wherever they go. In everyone’s eyes, she is but a crazy, annoying woman.
The mother demands a DNA test, the neighbour can finally bear the guilt no more and admits that the daughter is not hers. Her own daughter had suffocated in the hospital fire and so she took the surviving child as her own.
Not a logical scenario, perhaps, but near perfect performances made the film a wonderfully technical antidote to higher human ambition.
Fawziya’s secret recipe
The writer Hanaa’ Attiya offers an extraordinary image of randomly built neighbourhoods in Egypt, areas which are severely underprivileged. Fawziya’s secret recipe introduces the residents of these areas as people with a very strong will to enjoy life, regardless. Fawziya—played by Ilham Shahin—asks every man whom she likes to marry her. When she later discovers he is far from perfect, she asks for divorce, but by that time she would have already had a child by him. This happens four times.
Amazingly, the four husbands become friendly, meeting at her place every week in a cosy, pleasurable climate, bringing gifts and food for their children.
The spontaneous sarcasm in the dialogue is charming, and the poignancy is felt in every scene.