The collaborative film 18 Days, a series of ten shorts that revolve around Egypt's revolution, has stirred controversy over the involvement of Marwan Hamed and Sherif Arafa. Both filmmakers worked for ousted president Hosni Mubarak and the now defunct National Democratic Party during the 2005 presidential campaign.
The film will be screened at the Cannes Film Festival as a tribute to the January 25 Revolution. However, the film has been received with anger among people working in the arts field.
In response to these sentiments, the following statement was released by the makers of the film:
"We release this statement as a consequence to the false allegations that have been written in Egyptian newspapers about our project 18 Days as we understand that it was the result of misunderstanding and not enough investigation about certain information about our project.
"We started working on the project since February from a purely artistic sense; since we use the tools we are in command with to express our reflections about our revolution that has awed the world. Each filmmaker put in his own experiences, perceptions and vision. It was not made for commercial or propaganda purposes.
"The film is considered a volunteer work of all those, who have participated, on-screen or behind the scenes. We have not received any funding from any institution in Egypt or abroad. All filmmakers have funded the films themselves and all the revenues will go out to development projects."
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