Since its inaugural round in 2012, the Luxor African Film Festival (LAFF, 9-14 January) has acted as a vital link connecting filmmakers from all across the continent in a city with roots that go back thousands of years. The festival also provides opportunities for many young artists and intellectuals to gain experience by meeting with their counterparts elsewhere in the continent as well as seeing the latest cinematic works made there. Led by the festival founder and President Sayed Fouad, together with Co-Founder and Director Azza Al-Husseini, the LAFF team has managed to establish the festival as an annual cultural event and a continuous space for African cooperation as well.

In this year’s programme, some 60 films are being screened in the various sections. In the long film competition a crucial historical Algerian film was shown, True Chronicles of the Blida Joinville Psychiatric Hospital, directed by Abdennour Zahzah. It covers three years in the life of the French psychiatrist, physician, political activist and philosopher Frantz Fanon while he worked in Algeria from 1953 to 1956, witnessing the outbreak of military operations in Algeria as part of the liberation war that started in 1954 and ended with the announcement of the independence of Algeria from France in 1962.

The film, which was shot in black and white, opens in the psychiatric hospital of Blida province, 45 kilometres southwest of Algiers. The filmmaker gives an overview of the old psychiatric methods used at this place, giving the audience information in order to show the difference between what was done and how Fanon changed methods of treatment and how doctors and nurses dealt with patients. One of these methods was tying the hands or legs of some patients with ropes or tying them to a tree.

Hospital staff used to give the patients pet names and Fanon refused to let that happen, saying the patient should be addressed by their real name since it is important to bring them closer to their identity. One line of drama shows how a girl called Cleopatra becomes Juliet, her real name. He finds out that when she was 12 she was adopted by a French man and when he died his wife no longer wanted her. She was 20 and became clinically depressed. Fanon finds out when he tries to send her home because she no longer needs treatment at the hospital. The French doctors working with him in the hospital have a racist attitude towards the Arab patients and against him as well, though it is not clear whether they object to him being black (Afro-Caribbean) or to his methods.

The director of the hospital sends him to the most difficult section of the hospital, which deals with the Muslim patients. This enables him to work with the Algerian National Liberation Front (ANLF). It is clear that the filmmaker wants to show the humane part of Fanon mainly in his new methods of curing the patients before depicting his involvement with the Algerian Revolution, moving onto the threats that force him to leave Algeria with his family suddenly. The filmmaker ends his film with archival images and footage of the real hospital during the 1950s. In a discussion after the screening he mentioned that he did a documentary on Fanon 20 years ago and that was why he had so much material and footage that he could use in the film.

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One of the most entertaining films screened in the long competition was Asfour Min Al-Janna (A Bird from Paradise) directed by Tunisian filmmaker Mourad ben Cheikh. During the discussion after the screening the filmmaker said he was inspired by Mohamed bin Hammouda’s novel Ayoub’s Pot. The novel is about 360 pages, but he only used one chapter, about 20 pages of the novel, as a base for his script, focusing on two secondary characters from the novel.

The film hilariously depicts the conflict between two different cultures when an Italian 40-year-old called Amadeus Santacroce (Nicola Nocella) travels to Tunisia to meet the family of his beloved girlfriend Badra or Bitty, as he nicknamed her (Amal Mannai) for a marriage proposal. The first scene shows this Italian man who seemed to be from a wealthy family and looks like the famous Italian opera singer Pavarotti, going through the gates of a Tunisian seaport in his old Fiat. The clash of cultures happens right away when Amadeus tries to kiss his beloved and she refuses, telling him that this is Tunisia, before introducing him to her father and two brothers who were waiting nearby. The film doesn’t specify where in Tunisia her family lives but it is clearly a large village or a small town.

The filmmaker wanted to build the drama on strong roots creating some background scenes in Italy where the two lovers meet while Bitty is working in a bar and she has a fight with the owner. It is night and there is heavy rain in the street and, running away, she has nowhere to go. She knocks on the door of the antique shop so Amadeus, who is the owner of the shop, lets her in.

The comedy in the film is mainly built on the differences in culture and language. The most outstanding scene is when the whole family sits together with the Italian groom discussing not the details of the marriage but the procedures of converting him to Islam: what his new name should be and how he will be circumcised. Bitty’s father doesn’t want her to be part of this discussion as it involves male issues, so he brings in a young man from the village who knows a little Italian and the results are hilarious. The filmmaker is able to extract laughter from more than one source of comedy: Amadeus’ expressions (the Italian actor was brilliant in his reactions) as he does not understand the language spoken by Bitty’s family, the miserable attempts at translation from the family friend, and the father’s exaggerated insistence on giving the groom an Arab name, not to mention the need for circumcision in preparation for the wedding. The filmmaker stresses the irony by giving the groom the name Amadeus (Latin for Love of God) and making his family name Santacroce (the Holy Cross). The plot thickens as Amadeus’ mother, who doesn’t want her son to be married to an Arab, arrives in Tunisia to stop the wedding, but the predictable happy ending provides beautiful closure.

When the groom goes to the mufti to obtain a certificate of conversion to Islam, he gives his reason as marrying a Muslim girl, adding his belief in Islam later, and his request is declined. But since the wedding is already set – the certificate taken for granted – it takes place before he officially converts. At the end it is stated on screen that the law has been changed, giving both males and females the right to marry across sect.

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In the short film competition, some films had a political approach and others tried to discuss social or psychological issues. Among them was the Egyptian film Hadder (Okay), directed by Hesham Ali Abdel-Khalek. The story follows Adam (Mina Raafat), a young man working as an accountant. In the first scene, the camera shows him carrying lots of folders on his way to work in a company when he receives a call from a friend who is nagging for a feasibility study that Adam should have put together for him as a favour. Although Adam is not pleased with this call he agrees to do this favour. On the other hand, he is pressured by his colleague who wants him to do her work for her. She seems to abuse him, telling him that he is her saviour. The protagonist looks as if he has a soft spot for his colleague, though in the discussion the filmmaker said the first draft of the script was more elaborated regarding this line, which was later removed because he wanted to focus more on the psychological condition that is known as a “people-pleaser”.

The filmmaker also refers this type of illness to upbringing, which is why he includes more than one flashback of the protagonist when he is a child and his mother scolds him for being selfish. Some of the audience wondered how the film doesn’t end with an explosion from the protagonist against all of those who are exploiting him. The filmmaker told them that the psychological disorder takes time for treatment and he wanted to be faithful to psychological reality rather than a dramatic solution. He said the film was based on a monodrama by Mina Raafat, which he developed into a short film with the co-scriptwriter Christine Reda.

The Tunisian film Loading directed by Anis Lassoued, focuses more on a political and social disorder, which is corruption. The filmmaker illustrates a critical situation with Bilel (Mohamed Ali Al-Nahdi), a car driver who has just got a new job at a company. The first scene shows him calling a girl, who seems to be his fiancé, and keeps nagging him during the call. The situation escalates when he misses the stop sign, after a few metres he is stopped by a traffic police officer (Moez Toumi). After a long discussion he bribes him to cancel the fine and not send it to the company. Later Bilel   feels humiliated by the whole situation. He follows the same officer, sees him taking another bribe and takes video of the scene with his mobile phone. The situation escalates after Bilel plucks up his courage and goes to get back his money from the officer, telling him that he has evidence of his bribery.

The row develops into a fight between the two, a police patrol stops, and the older police officer (Sleh Msadek), after watching the video, tries to pressure Bilel by telling him that the situation is not in his favour and advises him to delete the video in return for getting his money back. Bilel insists on his revenge by accusing the officer of corruption, and raising his case to the highest level. The situation escalates even more when the two police officers try to take the phone from Bilel by force. The filmmaker extends the incident even more when the protagonist manages at this moment to post the video on social media while some passersby are filming the whole fight as police brutality. The film ends with a social media page with videos being shared by many users with lots of different comments on them.

* A version of this article appears in print in the 16 January, 2025 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly