Egypt filmmakers joined massive protests
Menna Taher, Thursday 10 Feb 2011
Filmmakers and artists march to Tahrir Square in their thousands


Amid the massive strikes by workers, lawyers and medical doctors around the country, another protest erupted by the Cinema Syndicate on 10 January for cinema makers, as well as writers and artists. Many entities have been protesting against the corruption within, the cinema makers at the syndicate were no different.

One of the main demands was for the head of the syndicate, Mossad Fouda to resign for not supporting the filmmakers’ stance towards the 25 January revolution and for refusing to sign the statement issued by the cinema makers.

The statement demanded that the head of the syndicate resign and the syndicate takes back the statements that Fouda has released, such as condemning the revolution and supporting the corrupt regime.

It also states that the cinema makers will resume their protest in Tahrir until all the demands of the revolution are met and calls for the Minister of the Media, Anas El Fekky, to resign as well as all the heads of television and newspapers, who contributedto the brainwashing campaign.

The artists' protestbegan at the syndicate but moved from Adly Street., where the syndicate is located, towards Talaat Harb square, then into BostanStreet and back to the syndicate, finally reaching Tahrir square from Soliman Pasha Street. It is also worth noting that several other marches were encountered throughout including a massive crowd of people from the lawyer's syndicate.

Around two thousand were protesting including well-known actors such as Khaled Abou El Naga, Amr Waked, Yousra El Lozy, Asser Yassin and Khaled Abdallah who have all beenactive in the protests from the beginning. Other independent filmmakers were present such as Aida El Kashef, Tamer El Saeed and Maggie Morgan,as well as veteran filmmaker Mohamed Khan. We also spotted directors such as Mohamed Yassin, Hani Khalifa, Ahmed Atef, Mohamed Shenawy among many others. Scriptwriters Tamer Habib, Hani Fawzy, Nasser Abdel Rahman, Mohammed Hassan, Sayed Ragab, and Wessam Soliman also participated. Protests were joined by producers the El Adl brothers.

The protest also included many other artists such as visual artist Shaymaa Aziz, choreographers Tamer Fathy and Karima Mansour, musician Hisham Gabr, sound engineer Tamer Demerdash and film editor Dalia Nasser. As the protests were heading towards Tahrir square, passersby joined in.

It is worth mentioning that as artists' demonstrations were taking place in Downdown Cairo, moving towards Tahrir, Anas El Fekky has been appointed the new Minister of Culture, in parallel to his responsibilities as the Minister of the Media.

https://english.ahram.org.eg/News/5363.aspx