The Cairo International Film Festival (CIFF) came to an end on a high note yesterday as Egypt’s Khaled Aboul-Naga scooped Best Actor for his role in the Palestinian film Eyes of a Thief. Iranian director Nima Javidi’s Melbourne won Best Picture. The festival had an unusually broad range of quality films but was accompanied by a number of glitches in the organising of the event. There was much thirst for the 36th edition of CIFF this year having been cancelled the year before, with organisers citing security reasons.
No doubt this year’s film festival had a different flavour and aimed at repositioning the event in Egypt's cultural map. Similar to the 2012 edition, screenings were held within the confines of the Cairo Opera House premises and locations situated on the Opera House grounds. The festival witnessed a large number of viewers flocking to screenings.
Setting the whole festival at the Opera grounds does not come without its perks as it provided space for movie enthusiasts to meet, talk and decide on the spot which films to go to out of a very rich programme. This year’s lineup was marked by the plethora of high quality films that spanned a variety of genres. There were films that surprised, films that disappointed and films that shocked. However, many of the festival’s selections were not highlighted beforehand to give the viewer enough information to decide which films to go to.
The lineup
The festival opened with Fatih Akin’s long awaited The Cut, a film about the Armenian genocide during World War I, approached cautiously to make it more accessible to a wider audience. The closing film was no less enthralling; an intense Greek picture entitled Little England presented by its seasoned director Pantelis Voulgaris and the film’s stars, Andreas Constantinou and Sofia Kokkali.
In between were numerous films to pick from, covering different genres to match different tastes. One of the best entries was The Fool, a Russian production by Yury Bykov that captured very symbolically the way corruption has taken over a town in Russia, or any other corrupt country for that matter. Another was Charlie’s Country, about a native Australian feeling robbed of his land.
The documentary Songs from the North offered a non-judgmental yet terrifying insight into one of the world’s strong standing totalitarian states, North Korea. Likewise, Silvered Water presented the dark, gloomy reality of Syria torn by war.
CIFF — and in particular the Cairo Opera House — witnessed the world premiere of Magic Arena, a documentary about the production of the opera Aida at Arena di Verona.
The first animation film to be screened as part of CIFF’s international competition, The Boy and the World, won the award for Best Screenwriting.
For a fun action thriller, the South Korean film A Hard Day by Kim Seong-Hun proved entertaining. For romantic comedy there was Love at First Fight by Thomas Cailley, for which Adèle Haenel won Best Actress.
Also honoured was Volker Schlondorff with his film Diplomacy, screened as part of the festival. Jean-Luc Godard’s Goodbye to Language, and Jean Renoir’s masterpiece The Grand Illusion were among many films available at the festival.
The Egyptian front
On the Egyptian front, there were three movies screened, all of which got lots of attention on their home ground. Karim Hanafy’s debut feature length film The Gate of Departure, Ahmad Abdalla’s Décor and Ibrahim El Batout’s El-Ott.
Also screened was Hussein El-Imam’s only film as a director, Like A Matchstick, a playful production that pays tribute to Egyptian black and white cinema. There was a special exhibition on renowned film maker Henry Barakat and one of his films, The Sin, was screened.
The Gate of Departure was highly stylised and a little alien to the Egyptian taste, and yet provided magnificent imagery that earned its director of photography, Zaki Aref, the Best Artistic Contribution award.
Décor, a solid entry from Ahmad Abdalla, starring Khaled Aboul-Naga, Maged El Kedwany and Horeya Farghaly, was filmed in black and white and had a positive impact on many viewers.
El-Ott, starring Amr Waked and Farouk El-Feshawi, was a bit of a disappointment and during the second screening in the Small Hall, a fight broke out as people attempted to gain entry to the screening. Salah Hanafy, the co-producer and co-star of the film, pointed out that even the film crew were not allowed in and had to go to a nearby café.
The good, the bad, and the ugly
Much to the credit this year’s CIFF, a great film selection was offered to a variety of movie goers, conveniently in one place in central Cairo, and enjoying a large turnout. This year it was more of a filmmaker’s haven with numerous artists in the business showing up instead of just shiny film stars. While screening within the Opera grounds did offer some convenience, it also discouraged many from other areas of Cairo, as well as different types of audiences, from attending.
This year's edition was a remarkable comeback in terms of the quality and range of films, but lacked organisational competency, with marked inefficiency and sometimes even carelessness. This is in stark contrast to the 34th edition in 2010, where the organisation was a lot more successful and even "dazzling" according to Ezzat Abou-Ouf who headed that year's edition, and yet fell short of providing the choice of films suitable for an international competition.
This year's festival certainly did a better job of making it known if films were open to ticket holders or not, as well as which films were subtitled and in what language (with the exception of Decor that was screened without English subtitles in its Arab and African premiere). In terms of availability of information, both festivals lacked advertising in adequate time beforehand. This year's press support and social media was weak and acted overwhelmed. Many of the important names of the international film industry were not properly advertised and their films were not well highlighted. The ticketing booth was needlessly inefficient.
Perhaps the fly in the ointment — and it wasn't a small fly either — was the clumsy and often irresponsible organisation provided by the Cairo Opera House premises specifically, that included sometimes shockingly ill-mannered staff. It comes as surprise that this staff proved inadequate at handling a major cultural event, perhaps due to lack of care, or training, or being overwhelmed by the surprisingly high turnout.
The fight outside the Opera’s Small Hall was not the only one. Ticket holders to the Jordanian film Theeb were denied entry. Although a special screening was held the next day, the damage had been done. Many were also denied entry to Abdalla’s Décor. An example where part of the organisation proved unfitting for the festival was when one of the gatekeepers cursed a festival goer after he had been denied entry to the film.
The security measures in force seemed to come from a bureaucrat mind with no sense or understanding what a film festival is supposed to be about. Too many metal detectors were present for very few access points to the Opera. Security personnel were also too occupied with the orders passed to them, and perhaps screen operators were too concerned with keeping to the schedule. The situation seemed to be calmer in other halls located on the Opera grounds, probably due to their smaller seat capacity and accordingly less pressure on staff at those locations. Clearly, throughout the whole festival, meaningful coordination between the different locations hosting the festival and the festival organisers was missing.
The 36th edition of the Cairo International Film Festival was a powerful return for this important event and offered many things of value. Coming back with a fresh spirit and the hope to bring CIFF back to its regional glory, it is important to point to room for growth and flaws that need to be addressed. Though the festival organisers are key to a successful event, they cannot be held responsible for all the glitches. The needed change is for a sense of art and culture to be spread across Egypt in whatever events are organised. While CIFF is a mirror of the general sentiment towards culture, it is also an opportunity to reshape perceptions. Once general recognition of culture becomes part of our life, fixes in organisation and appreciation of the festival, along with appropriate security measures that aim to facilitate a successful event, will come naturally.
Short link: