In the past two decades scripts in Egyptian cinema have become predictable, farcically comic, try desperately to be serious, and spoil their depiction of Egyptian problems by making the story too unbelievable and simplistic.
It is no surprise that the number one problem facing good scripts is the monopoly of Egyptian production companies over the industry. The problem is not only in their refusal to get good scripts produced but in their strict guidelines that lead directors to tailor their work to fit production needs.
Mohamed Khan, the renowned Egyptian filmmaker, explained the limitations he is faced with while still insisting on maintaining his personal touch. “Today’s cinema has to revolve around young people,” he said in a discussion held in conjunction with the exhibition Futuropolis on 19 December 2010, “even though it would be interesting to portray an old man.”
Khan also admitted that the production requirements are always on his mind, explaining how he gets around them. “They want a song, I give them a song,” he joked, referring to his film, Banat Wust El Balad (Downtown Girls) , in which Menna Shalaby played a singer faking a recording session to attract the interest of Khaled Abou El Naga. “But it has to be put within the context of the film.”
Sayed Ragab, the writer and actor in Khaled El Haggar’s El Shouq (Lust), shared sentiments very similar to Khan.
“If a director wants to portray an old man we have to use flashbacks to his life as a young man,” Ragab says. “This is one of the reasons that actors keep on dying their hair or resorting to other measures to keep looking young. Look at Meryl Streep for example, she still gets great roles.”
Ragab also comments that many people asked him why he chose to portray a middle-aged woman as his central character. “Why not?” he would reply.
Female roles are rarely fleshed out or portrayed in a realistic light. They are either ‘virtuous’, ‘morally corrupt’ or serve as the pretty girl that the protagonist falls in love with.
Many actresses never quite realise their full potential, due to the mostly unchallenging roles they’re given. The audience would be surprised if these actresses were finally given a script with a comprehensive character to work with.
Examples of such are Nelly Kareem with her role in Wahed Sifr (1-0) and Basma in Rasayel El Bahr (Messages from the Sea). Sawsan Badr also gave one of her best performances to date in El Shouq because of the complexity of the character of Fatma.
Mohamed Khan’s Banat Wust El Balad, written by Wessam Soliman, also places two young women in a more natural light, depicting their flaws, desires and frustrations.
Soliman’s scripts mainly revolve around friendships, and have an undeniable personal touch. “Every writer has something through which he sees and understands the world. For me, it is friendship,” says Soliman, “Writers are exposed through their writing.”
Yet this genuine type of writing is rare in Egyptian cinema. Films are usually supported by the stars that only have to appear to make the film successful, and more often than not they are adapted, or even stolen, from Americana films and plot lines.
“Producers undermine the audience,” says Soliman, explaining that producers deem feature films as unprofitable. “They make these claims randomly,” she continues “as there are no specific statistics that give a clear idea about the actual number of audiences.”
“There is an ongoing belief that filmmakers from the 1980s have driven away audiences from the cinema,” she says, “and critics accept it.”
Yet several observations only prove that audiences are eager for a different calibre of films from what’s available on the market.
Khan said that while getting his hair cut he was asked what Klephty means. Klephty (Hustler) is derived from a Greek word and is the title of a film by Mohamed Khan. “I was really happy because I don’t make films specifically for festivals as many would claim,” Khan said, “I make them for the public and I want them to be seen.”
Sayed Ragab also experienced a similar incident. As he was walking down the street a police officer shouted, “El Shouq is a great film.”
Moments such as these only prove that feature films are not only seen by the ‘cultured few’ as producers would argue and that these films would gain popularity if provided with the distribution they deserve.
Daoud Abdel Sayed spent five years looking for a producer for his film El KitKat, and nine years for Rasayel El Bahr. As producers claimed that these films were unprofitable, Abdel Sayed argues that El KitKat made a lot of money.
But finding a producer isn’t the only problem for Abdel Sayed. He has faced troubles with censors with every film he has made.
“It also took me about six months to get the approval of the censors for El KitKat because they said it was too bleak,” Abdel Sayed says.
In Rasayel El Bahr the censors thought that the scenes in which the protagonist was talking with the sea, he was actually talking to God.
In the film, a young man played by Asser Yassin, who finds it difficult to communicate with others because of his stutter, returns to Alexandria after his father’s death. As he struggles to survive he meets several similarly lost individuals. One sub-plot involves his Italian neighbour, also a past lover, and early in the film there are attempts to rekindle this dormant passion, until she ends up with another woman.
Seeing that lesbianism is frowned upon and that sometimes even a kiss is censored, the film was recently screened in Rotana cinema with about 30 minutes cut out. “Most of the sub-plot of his neighbour was left out,” Abdel Sayed commented. “It’s barbarism.”
Yet Khan has managed to make 22 films so far in this environment, but it hasn’t been without a struggle.
After a screening of his film Fares El Madeena (The City's Knight) in the summer of 2010, Khan talked about the measures he had to take to make the film. He admitted that he made almost no money and was in debt afterwards. Even the car used in the film was borrowed from a friend.
Yet despite this rigorous system, many critics and filmmakers alike agree that in the last few years good films have emerged.
Film critics Rafik El Sabban and Sherif Awad commended Bentein Men Masr (Two Girls from Egypt).
Mohamed Hefzy and Khaled Abou El Naga, the co-producers of Microphone, also believe that in the past few years several films with good scripts have been produced, such as Wahed Sifr.
Despite Hefzy’s involvement in the commercial film industry, he is now broadening his range to look for films that have a different approach.
In the Q-&-A session following the premiere of Microphone at the Cairo International Film Festival on 8 December, Hefzy stated that the idea behind the production of Microphone is to bridge the gap between the commercial and the independent.
While low-budget films give filmmakers immense freedom of expression, they don’t usually receive much exposure. Ibrahim El Battout's Ain Shams was screened for around two weeks in cinemas. That was also the fate of Ahmed Abdalla's Heliopolis and Ahmed Rashan's Basra.
Yet Microphone’s premiere was screened in two different halls at Family Cinema, and both were packed. The film will be screened commercially in more cinemas and for a longer period than Abdalla's debut film Heliopolis.
Despite the predominance of big stars and mass-production in the Egyptian film industry, some producers, like Hefzy and Isaad Younis - who produced Rasayel El Bahr and Bentein Men Masr - are looking at alternative cinema and what it offers. Batout has also founded his own production company Ein Shams Films in 2010 to help promote low-budget films.
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