“It’s just a girl” is a four-minute film about how the difficulties a typical Egyptian young woman faces in her everyday life in a society that generally honours men and belittles women. In several of the situations depicted in the film the men poke fun at the young women under the pretext that: “It’s just a girl”. No matter how serious the situation, they utter this allegation spontaneously as though it is sufficient to treat women as second class.
The film insinuates that the reason behind this attitude could be mere inferiority on the part of men, or that they were brought up by their parents to believe that girls are not equal to boys. However, the men may realise when it is too late that their belittling behaviour towards women is replicated in behavior towards their own wives, mothers or sisters by other men.
The short film is a recent production by the Mass Communication students of al-Ahram Canadian University in Cairo. The concept was the brainchild of the female student Menna Ihab, and the team working on the film were cameraman Mina Kamal, editor Ahmed Magdy, and director Youssef Essam. The young men Hussam Hassanein, Hussam Ayman, Ali Muhammad, and Mahmoud Muhammad; and the women Nouran Fahd and Nada al-Sayed formed the cast.
Watani International
6 March 2016