Lina walks in a neighborhood in Bab Sharqi neighborhood in Damascus, saluting spontaneously everyone who receives it. Before she reaches her destination to the handicraft shop she runs, Uncle Wajih precedes her, exploring the place for the first time, so he spontaneously sits on the chair and starts playing an instrument without introduction Oud and singing to delight customers.

People walking in the lane outside come to listen to him sing: "Be the warmth of my body, be the sun, you are the story of my night, you are the story and you are the whisper, you are the one who is waiting for you for life."

Uncle Wajih was in pain after he lost one of his relatives and got into a bad psychological state that made him lose some of his memory.

He resists this by diving into the places of his old memories that lead him to new acquaintances such as Lina, the owner of the shop in the Syrian film "A Tale in Damascus" directed by Ahmed Ibrahim Ahmed, which won the Best Actress Award for Arab Film at the Alexandria Film Festival for Mediterranean Countries in its session this year 2022. .

This festival differs from the rest of the Egyptian film festivals in that it reflects an important international cultural dimension represented by the city of Alexandria, especially its library overlooking the sea in which the festival was held.

The film plays a symphony of nostalgia to the rhythm of the past, using all the icons, from the historical quarter to the oud, and the sound of Al-Shajn music.

The scenes take place in limited places: the old quarter, some shops and houses;

This makes the texture of the film suitable for television drama rather than cinematography.

However, the director was able to make good use of the visual elements of handicrafts and decor in the background of the scenes to convey the meanings of love, longing, suffering and memories, in addition to the high acting performance of the film star Ghassan Massoud, who played the role of Uncle Wajih.

These and other elements seem to be a common denominator among many cities of the countries bordering the Mediterranean Sea, to the north and south.

The sight of this lane, this passion, love of music, art and history is one of the commonalities among other cities such as Tangiers in Morocco, Sicily in Italy or Malaga in Spain.

It is one of the common elements that distinguish the Mediterranean countries in addition to the similarity in some patterns of food and weather;

This necessitated the presence of the so-called Mediterranean identity in cinematic circles, which is strongly present in cinema through several festivals held every year, including the Alexandria Film Festival for Mediterranean Countries.

This festival differs from the rest of the Egyptian film festivals because it reflects an important international cultural dimension represented by the city of Alexandria, especially its library overlooking the sea, in which the festival ceremony was held.

Technical and cultural cooperation between the countries of the Mediterranean is emphasized through support programs and film screenings. It is a cooperation based on a long history of the transfer of ideas, cultures and migrations across the two shores of the Mediterranean, or on one side of the Mediterranean without the other.

In the past, it was possible within a single day to transmit the warning from Alexandria in the east to Gibraltar in the west, through sequential kindling of fires on coastal beacons in North African cities to warn of any attacks by the Crusaders;

As explained by Dr. Abdel Aziz Kamel, the former Egyptian Minister of Endowments and Al-Azhar Affairs, in an interview with him on the religious Maspero channel during the sixties, and recently, arts and ideas are still transmitted in different ways through new paths, including this festival and other film festivals bearing the same identity.

Mediterranean Film Festivals

The path of the ancient lighthouses intersects with the path of the recent Mediterranean film festivals in North Africa;

There is the Tunisian Manarat Festival for Mediterranean Cinema, the Algerian Annaba Festival for Mediterranean Film, and the Moroccan Tetouan Festival for Mediterranean Cinema.

They are festivals that transcended the old conflict framework between the two shores of the Mediterranean to consolidate the values ​​of artistic and cultural cooperation across the countries bordering the Mediterranean.

This does not negate the existence of political and cultural sensitivities that still exist, and they can be clearly monitored in the southern Mediterranean film festivals, which is the participation of Israel as overlooking the Mediterranean, which is the focus of the dispute - and perhaps the sharp contrast - in the definition of Mediterranean cinema, north and south;

On the Arab level, who represents this geographical spot in the east is the Palestinian film, but in the North Bank, there is no objection to the participation of the Israeli film next to the Palestinian film.

As for the connotations of Mediterranean identity in the film, the British film critic and historian Ronald Bergan wonders about the meaning of Mediterranean cinema and the feasibility of holding festivals in its name. What brings Turkey together with Spain, Italy and Albania?

While acknowledging the difficulty of answering, he tries to answer in a way that seems ironic, which is the presence of the sea and the beautiful scenes in the scenes of any movie, which saves him from failure if his artistic quality is below the required level.

This is something that the Dutch director of Algerian origin, Karim Tridia, disagrees with, who strongly believes in the connection of identity to place.

Tridia represented Holland in the Academy Award with his movie "Polish Bride" in 1998, and sees that his "Mediterranean" feeling in drama and poetry is different from the people of Nordic countries, and sums up this feeling in two words: "rhythm" and "mood".

This does not contradict his lack of faith in the Mediterranean identity.

Also, Egyptian film critic Dr. Walid Seif believes in his book "One of the Masterpieces of the Alexandria Festival and Contemporary Mediterranean Cinema" that the common characteristics of the peoples of the Mediterranean undoubtedly affect their cinematic styles.

It also delves in a critical and analytical depth in the book issued by the Egyptian Association of Film Writers and Critics in the films that were shown at the Alexandria Festival over the past 20 years;

To come out with the same result.

This severe critical discrepancy about the meaning, concept and feasibility of the Mediterranean identity on the artistic level, especially the cinematic one, did not prevent the continuation of these festivals for several decades, and even the initiation of new festivals;

Such as the Euro-Eastern Documentary Film Festival in the Moroccan city of Tangiers, which later stopped to reflect the meaning that there are parallel geographical artistic identities that do not necessarily reflect the same geopolitical divisions.