El Gouna-
Who would have imagined that the celebration of the Egyptian feature film “Feathers”, which won one of the most important prizes of the Cannes Festival in one of the most important honors for Egyptian cinema in its history, would turn into a violent media attack that a film has not witnessed for many years, especially since the film revolves around In a fantasy world and completely away from the famous taboo triangle of politics, sex and religion (which gives censors the upper hand to ban films in Egypt)?
Overnight, the situation turned. The Egyptian film Feathers, which is celebrated by the El Gouna Festival and presents its first Arab show, becomes the talk of the hour, and the attention of social media platforms shifts from the fashion of artists, movie stars and stars to the controversy over the film "offensive to Egypt's reputation", after rumors spread about the withdrawal of artists. Egyptian cinema from the movie show and the intervention of the artist Sherif Mounir with the media Amr Adib and accusations of the film insulting Egypt.
Who was to El Gouna
Months ago, "Rish" won the Critics' Week competition prize and the International Critics Jury Prize (Fibrisi) at the Cannes Film Festival, the most important film festival in the world, to present Egyptian cinema with one of the most important international awards in its long history. , especially that the Cairo Festival - the first and most important competitor to the El Gouna Festival - may be embarrassed from showing it, because the film's producer is the festival's president, Mohamed Hefzy.
fantasy and black comedy
In a mixture of fantasy and black comedy, "Rish" tells the story of a husband who hosts a birthday party for his youngest son, and decides to undergo the experiment of a magician, who puts him in a box to turn into a chicken inside, leaving his wife without a breadwinner, to set out on an arduous journey in search of a source of income in a ruthless society. , without ceasing clumsy attempts to stop the work of magic and recover her husband from the hen, while searching for the magician who disappeared without a trace.
The film presents its strange story in a framework of realism, as if this story could actually happen, using non-professional actors who came from their natural world, speaking in the language of simple Egyptians, thinking like them and even dancing in front of the camera as well.
Realistic filming places, conveying to us the reality that millions live in poor neighborhoods, simple houses and difficult conditions, and they hear classical Egyptian songs, but this is not our story anyway, as these events may take place anywhere in the world, in any language, with any features and at any other time.
The method is more than the scenario
The director of the film, Omar Al-Zuhairi, says, "The film is based more on style than on the script. The script says, for example, that the heroine goes to work, but what happens in the scene is what I add as a director. When they went with the chicken to the African quack, the man was inside the tent from the beginning, but I changed it during filming to get down." The Antichrist from the top of the hill, heading towards them.” He asserts in his conversations that the human being is the basis, as he tells the story of a mother and “the movie I made as a son, husband, and most importantly a human.”
I'm not bold enough
Al-Zuhairi remembers the advice of the late Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami when he watched Al-Zuhairi's short film in 2014, which was also shown at the Cannes Film Festival, "Your film is beautiful, but you are not bold enough." Perhaps this prompted him to be more daring with a film that had never before been seen in Egyptian cinema.
In his speech before the screening of his film in El Gouna, Al-Zuhairi saluted his professors at the Film Institute and the Egyptian film directors who were assistants to them before he became a director, and who worked for a long time as an assistant to Yousry Nasrallah and Ahmed Abdullah Al-Sayed in their most important films.
defense of the movie
Many came out of the screening of the film criticizing it, describing it as long or boring, even if it was different and strange, but the campaign - which seemed systematic and intended and aimed at a work of art that won high international honors - prompted many of those who criticized the screening of the film - most of whom are journalists, critics, filmmakers or working in the industry by virtue of their presence at the show. The first for the film at the El Gouna Festival in its grand hall - to celebrate the film and its director and defend it on social media in the face of violently directed spears to kill the film in its cradle and try to end the director’s experience in his first feature film, so that director Mohamed Diab stopped before the start of his movie “Princess.” Yesterday in El-Gouna, El-Zuhairi describes the next Youssef Chahine.
El Gouna Celebrates Contrasting Arab Cinema
The El Gouna Festival is credited with celebrating different Egyptian and Arab cinema, and the interest of its organizers in bringing the most important productions of Arab and Egyptian cinema that are celebrated abroad.
3 years ago, the festival celebrated the movie "Yomuddin" with great celebration, after its participation in the official competition of the Cannes Festival after years of absence, and the voices did not rise that the film starring a real leprosy patient offends the reputation of the country, but rather the artists participated in honoring the filmmakers, and the founder of the film also attended. The festival screened Naguib Sawiris, El Gouna screened the Sudanese film "You Will Die at Twenty", which won the Lion of Venice 2019, and last year the festival screened the Egyptian short film 16, which was awarded the Palme d'Or in Cannes.
From fashion to cinema
"Rish" succeeds in transferring the media interest and the interest of social media followers from talking about fashion and fashion to the most important talk about cinema and art. This is why film festivals are held and that is why films are made, so that the local audience can watch different films - whether from their country or from countries of the world - and discuss them, Especially in a marketing festival, mainly for a small tourist village limited to the elite in Egypt, such as El Gouna.
Not a discussion of art
It may not be the right time to talk about the standards of the film technically, after the discussion about the film’s aesthetics and value has turned into another misleading talk about its political orientation, its sources of funding and its abuse of the country’s reputation. And non-professional actors stand in front of the camera for the first time, and his director is satisfied with fixed cadres, and his director is affected by the worlds of international directors.
Cinema - and art in general - allows for difference, different tastes, opinions, controversy and discussion about them, but the transition of this natural and healthy difference from respecting opinions to trying to bring repeated accusations of defaming the country is a communication from an artist - such as Sherif Mounir and others - to the authorities to ban the film and tighten control over Films, on a totally misplaced occasion, as we are in front of a film that knows no way to politics, either from near or from afar, unless we consider the portrayal of slums and the suffering of women in a bureaucratic world to obtain a husband’s pension or find a political job opportunity.
From the media attack to Parliament
After the film was shown in El Gouna, the artist Sherif Mounir attacked him in a television interview with Amr Adib, and said that the torment and filth in which the family lived during the events of the film was exaggerated, and indicated that the slums that existed previously should be disregarded in the "New Republic", and that Shedding light on the beautiful life in Egypt, he denounced the celebration of the film at the Cannes Festival.
The voices of some artists accusing the film of insulting Egypt’s reputation, and the media, Ahmed Moussa, attacked the film on his television program, and the Egyptian parliamentarian Ahmed Muhanna confirmed that he would submit a request for a briefing to the Speaker of Parliament and the Minister of Culture about showing the film, because it helps distort Egypt’s image globally, and the parliamentarian demanded the necessity of Hold accountable those who caused this film to be directed against Egypt, "by showing scenes that contradict reality."
Dr. Khaled Abdel Jalil - Head of Censorship of Artistic Works - commented that the film was shown to censorship as a scenario only, and the film is not subject to censorship at festivals - especially those coming from Cannes.
Abdel-Jalil added in televised statements that the Minister of Culture, Enas Abdel-Dayem, did not see him, and honored his heroes for receiving an award at the Cannes Festival for the first time in the history of Egyptian cinema.
Discomfort and great injury
On the other hand, Mohamed Hefzy, the film's producer and president of the Cairo Festival, commented that the difference in viewpoints is healthy, and added that all the details of the film were created by its director, Omar Al-Zuhairi, and the film is stripped of temporal and spatial frameworks and talks about a human situation that can exist at any time.
Omar Al-Zuhairi also expressed his annoyance at the reactions, stressing that he wanted to present a problem that seemed comical, and as you approached it, you would discover that it was a very big problem, a life or death problem.
Al-Zuhairi added - in statements to Al-Masry Al-Youm newspaper - that he felt a great wound after the attack on his film, "because I presented cinema in the end, and I did not present anything strange... The appreciation from international festivals was for cinema and not for the subject, and any attempts to renew there are directions to put ideas for it." .
The El Gouna Film Festival issued a statement confirming that the selection of the film for screening was consistent with the criteria for selecting films at the festival, based on the successes it achieved in international forums, especially its obtaining the Grand Prize of the International Critics’ Week at the largest international festivals, the Cannes Festival, which is the first film An Egyptian receives such a prestigious award, and therefore his choice of screening at the El Gouna Festival was part of the interest in Egyptian affairs, in the artistic and cultural fields globally, especially since Egyptian cinema for 125 years has not received an Egyptian film of such importance.