Resonating with layers of personal and political meaning, the messy aftermath of the Egyptian revolution is captured in Yousry Nasrallah’s movie “After the battle”. The film has just been released in France and Egypt.

It may be too soon to come to terms with the confused aftermath of the Arab Spring, a major undertaking that Egypt’s premiere director Yousry Nasrallah and scriptwriter Omar Schama tackle with intelligence and passionate boldness in “After the Battle”.

Set in the highly charged political atmosphere of today’s Cairo, the tale of a young middle-class woman activist and her reckless entanglement with a lower-class anti-revolutionary bursts at the seams with ideas and impressions lifted directly from Tahrir Square, breathlessly thrusting the viewer into the midst of current events. Though too excited and involved to balance history and fiction, the film has enough atmosphere and topical fascination to ride the wave of international curiosity in the region. It should translate into wide art house release, especially in Europe and Arab territories.

LIEN

Interview with Yousry Nasrallah September 2011

THE MOVIE

AFTER THE BATTLE
from Yousry Nasrallah
Egypt, 2012, 122 minutes
Cast: Mena Shalaby, Bassem Samra, Nahed El Sebaï

Synopsis: The film starts off with the familiar sight of thousands of demonstrators who, in February of 2011, were violently charged by horsemen in what has come to be known as “the Battle of the Camel.” The impetuous Rim (Meena Chalaby) goes with her friend Dina (Jordanian actress Phaedra) to distribute fodder to hungry horses in the ancient village of Nazlet, in the shadow of the Pyramids. Now that the tourists who once hired them have disappeared, the horsemen are so poor they can no longer afford to feed their mounts. Here she meets the strapping, guileless rider Mahmoud (Bassem Samra) and they exchange a forbidden kiss in the night.

Yousry Nasrallah – Biographie

Born 1952 in Cairo. After studying economics and political science, he went to live in Lebanon where he became a journalist. He began his career in film in 1980 as assistant to Volker Schlöndorff on Die Fälschung and to Youssef Chahine on Al-Dhakira and Adieu Bonaparte which he also co-wrote. In 1987, he directed his first film Summer Thefts, produced by Youssef Chahine and considered as one of the films that most contributed to the revival of Egyptian cinema. He carried on his collaboration with Chahine as co-director of Alexandria Again and Forever (1990) and Cairo as Seen by Chahine (1991). In 1994, he directed Marcides and, in 1995, the documentary On Boys, Girls and the Veil. In 1999, El Medina was awarded the Special Jury Prize in Locarno Film Festival. In 2004, his film The Gate of Sun (Bab El Chams), taken from Elias Khoury’s novel, was presented in the Cannes Official Selection (out of competition).

Blasted by the censors in her home country, Beirut Hotel, the third feature-length film from Franco-Lebanese director Danielle Arbid, is nevertheless scheduled for broadcast on our channel on January 20! Initially, the ARTE co-production was to be given a cinema release in Lebanon on January 19th. Herewith the tale of a chaotic production in a chaotic country, and an interview with Danielle Arbid, who discusses the prevailing climate in Lebanon, her battles, and her disillusionment.

In late December, the new film from director Danielle Arbid was banned from release in Lebanon by the Censorship and General Security Committee, part of the country’s internal security services. The tale of a passionate love affair between a Lebanese singer and a French lawyer contains explicit sex scenes liable to shock certain communities in the Lebanon.

The movie was banned, however, for completely different reasons. According to the commission, the intrigue of the film “creates a problem with regard to the assassination of Rafic Hariri” (the former Prime minister killed on 14 February 2005). It rules that the issue, raised in the film by a lawyer who is suspected of espionage, “should be avoided until the inquiry into the assassination of the former Prime minister is complete.”

Censorship is a recurring theme in Lebanon. Internationally acclaimed films, such as Pulp Fiction, Waltz With Bachir and Persepolis, have already met with the authorities’ disapproval for political reasons.

To make her film suitable for release, the director would have to agree to cut any scenes referring to this political event. For Danielle Arbid  this was out of the question. Most of her films have already been subjected to censorship. She has contested the decision in court, intending to create a judiciary precedent, and rejected the option of getting  around the censors by showing the film on the Internet.

For ARTE, Danielle Arbid reveals the pitfalls of a filming on Lebanese soil and explains why Beirut still has a way to go before it can regard itself as part of the “the revolutions of the Arab world.”

What were their reasons for banning your film and how did you defend yourself?

They were angry that I did not shoot the version I had presented to them. In Lebanon, getting a theatrical release for a movie is a complex business. To shoot a fictional film, you need filming permission from the General Security Committee, linked to the Lebanese Interior Ministry.  Before giving their approval, they demand to read a completed script. I never hand over a final draft because it is constantly evolving, I often change it along the way before filming begins. Afterwards, when the film is released, they produce the original script you delivered and say: “But this isn’t what you’ve put in the film!” There are two censorships, in fact: one at the script stage and another after the actual filming. 

I decided to file a complaint, demanding that they prove how my film is a threat to the security of Lebanon, and that I said anything that hasn’t already appeared in the press. We are going to win because on top of everything else, their censorship committee is illegal. Nowhere in law does it say that the State must read scripts before giving approval for filming. They say, “She has filmed things that she hid from us, things that are not in the script.” I reply, “Your censorship committee is illegal, I didn’t even have to show you my script.”

I had the same problem with my first two feature films.  For the first, they wanted to cut it. I refused. There were long negotiations before they finally agreed to give it an 18 certificate and not cut it. And then for the second, they wanted to cut whole sequences and I refused that too. No film deserves to be cut, not even the worst ones. It is up to the author to decide where it should be cut and why, not the censors. Before Beirut Hotel could be released in Lebanon, they wanted me to cut all the sections referring to the spy story in the movie. I immersed myself in the reality of modern-day Lebanon because I thought that the things I was reading in the newspapers two years ago at the time of writing really lent themselves to fiction. As dramatic material, it’s rather interesting. But I specifically did not name any political parties, nor campaign for anyone, nor insult anyone. It is not a blasphemous film.

Then there really are problems of freedom of expression…

Yes, on top of that people think that Lebanon is an open country. I myself think that it is, but in fact they have a really pernicious, nasty system. Even when you hand over your script, they summon you twenty times before giving approval, and you have to show your credentials, prove your innocence. You have to show as an artist that you are not going to produce anything subversive. It’s almost as if they’re asking you to make a propaganda film. They do everything in their power to make you feel in the wrong, whereas you just want to create something. So it’s one thing to take pride in your artists, but a country ought to support them, give them funding. In Lebanon, there is not a single euro available to make films. I’m fed up of it, this is the straw that broke the camel’s back. It’s the third film and I could not get it through. Nobody has ever tried to file a complaint before. I did, on the principle of “enough is enough!”

What are the Lebanese afraid of? As the films starts, you have Zoha say: “Everybody here is afraid.” The people are afraid, and it seems the leaders are too. What’s going on?

Everyone in Lebanon is afraid, and everyone has always been afraid.Lebanon is like a sieve, a house of cards, as we went through a civil war but afterwards didn’t manage to build a solid state. We are still dependent upon what happens in Syria, in Israel, upon a possible war on the South-Lebanon border. War could break out there at any time.

Combine that with huge internal problems related to disparities, inequalities, the growing gap between rich and poor, the actual constitution of Lebanon, which is written in a fairly convoluted way, given that it takes into account Christians, Muslims, Shiites, Sunnis and Druze. And each of these communities shares part of the power. If one group becomes larger than the others, it demands a greater share of the power, which the others contest. It’s a kind of running problem.

I have friends who are constantly scared of tomorrow, rich and poor alike. At the same time there’s this fatalistic, risky side, because risk is something we’re used to. When you lived through fifteen years of war you get used to living with it. And it’s a vicious circle, because you get used to liking it. That feeling you’re living on a volcano that could erupt at any moment.

The censors, however, are scared of something else entirely: creation. Artists’ creativity. It’s the same all over the world. But in Lebanon, they’re even more virulent, because it’s a country on the frontier between the East and the West, which makes our lifestyle fairly western. On the one hand it’s an ultra-liberal country where money plays a big part, on the other there is no real state aid for anybody. It’s very difficult to find your way in Lebanon, it’s a complicated country.

Where does Lebanon stand in the context of the Arab revolutions? How do the Lebanese see all those events?

They’re a little perplexed if I might put it like that, because the Lebanese don’t know what they’re fighting against. There’s not just one person to blame, there are so many. And there are so many corrupt politicians. Power is shared between people who don’t even agree amongst themselves, so it’s difficult. In Egypt or Tunisia, they had one person to depose, at least symbolically. There’s an internet site that carries the billing: “Against all the Lebanese dictators” and it’s true, they are legion: former militiamen during the war who have mostly become ministers and who now each represent their community, each playing on the other’s fear.

The day they ban these ministers from appearing on television and insulting each other and creating hatred between the communities is the day I’d accept being banned. The state is serving no purpose other than to stir up hatred. There is no state, Lebanon is like a sieve, its borders are open, anyone can come and go. That creates a state of paranoia, as I try to point out in my film. To me, Beirut is a paranoid city. You can’t even predict the end of the day here. People here live with that sense of inevitability.

Haven’t the revolutions in the Arab World offered hope?

The Lebanese are pretty optimistic, they’re used to facing all kinds of difficulties. But they’re very scared of repercussions from the situation in Syria, a country that’s closely linked to Lebanon, whether the regime falls or remains. The big question is, how interconnected are Syria and Lebanon?

What is your definition of democracy?

My definition of democracy is freedom, total freedom! I may be fairly utopian, but I believe we are supposed to be free to make our choices, to do, to create, to address a public which either accepts and likes what you’re saying or doesn’t. And then, for any problems, we should be accountable to the law, not to censors. We live in a society which is supposed to be overseen by something called the justice system. I firmly believe in that system, even if it’s not always perfect. I’m not saying it’s perfect in France, far from it, but there is a minimum insurance. Whereas in Lebanon, the strong can win and the weak can pipe down, and that can go on for years.

 Interview: Sabine Lange and Laure Siegel

© Picture : Palmira Escobar

Trailer of “Beirut Hotel” :

 « Beyrouth Hôtel » original soundtrack

Original soundtrack of the movie is available on iTunes.
One of the musicians and composers, Zeid Hamdan has been portrayed in our subject on artists of the arab world.

Bio

Danielle Arbid was born in Beirut (Lebanon) on April 26 1970. Aged seventeen she left Beirut for Paris, where she studied literature and worked as a freelance journalist for various newspapers. For the last ten years, she has been directing films. She began with a short film, “Raddem”, and followed it with others, one of which was the documentary “Après la guerre” (60′) for an ARTE Theme Evening. “In the battlefields”, her first feature-length movie, was selected by the Cannes Directors’ Fortnight in 2004. Her other films, notably “Seule avec la guerre”, “Aux frontières” and “Conversation de salon” were very warmly received and won several awards, including the Video Golden Leopard at the Locarno Festival.
Danielle Arbid began her first feature-length fiction film, “Linas”, before releasing “In the battlefields” (Maarek Hob) in 2004, then in 2007 “A lost man”, her second fiction feature. “Beirut Hotel” is her latest long-form fiction, coproduced by ARTE.

  Links

Facebook page for “Unite Lebanon”, which calls for a national revolution

Danielle Arbid on Facebook

Danielle Arbid Films on Facebook

Article in Now Libanon: Banning Beirut, again

“Beirut Hotel” on the Films Pelléas website

The latest movie of Romanian-born filmmaker Radu Mihaileanu, The Source (La Source des Femmes), was just released in French theaters. A modern-day fable exploring female empowerment in the Arab world. A comedy/drama set in a Morrocan village and centered on a battle of the sexes, where women threaten to withhold sexual favors if their men refuse to fetch water from a remote well.

The Source was written and shot before the Arab Spring. How did you manage to strike at the heart of all the issues and themes that have arisen in the wake of these revolutions?

Radu Mihaileanu: The film misses one of the most important problems, an issue that isn’t really tackled. The subject is touched upon: the question of unemployment. All Arab countries are hit very hard by economic and unemployment issues. But other matters, such as the position of women, the dialogue between tradition and modernity, what certain books refer to as a dialogue between tradition and new technology, relations between generations, relations in religion and in the modernity of religion, that some call the “Islam of Light”… Here, all this is brought up, of course, in the film. There are two aspects… I was struck, during numerous trips through countries in North Africa, especially Morocco, by the beauty and the complexity and subtlety of people, particularly the women. And I quickly grasped how the West tends to simplify to a great extent all these issues, notably the question of “who are the Arabs?”. They know very well that Arabs are a very diverse group, not a single, uniform people. From Iran, where they are Persians, to Morocco, where there are Arab-speakers and Berbers. And similarly, the matter of religion is a little simplified and simplistic in the West. So I wanted first and foremost to delve deeper, to understand better myself, and to show a little more complexity and beauty in these people. And secondly, I quickly sensed that certain aspects were making these societies evolve. One aspect, often a difficult one, is the access increasing numbers of women have to education. These women are becoming even more qualified in some places than the men. Therefore out of necessity, mechanically if you will, they were going to occupy more and more positions of responsibility in both private and civilian life. They are going to change society by opening it, by feminizing it. So that was noticeable on the one hand, while on the other, you noticed an increasingly fascinating dialogue between tradition, religion and modernity, across new technologies, across the Internet, mobile phones and satellite dishes, of which there are a great many over there. So it was only natural that something had to give. Things could not remain stuck as they were. A movement was already underway. Afterwards, well… They didn’t envisage revolutions on that scale, and especially the way the revolution spread throughout the Arab world.
Today’s analysis is even more complex. No one imagined the connection with religion, with extremism. Today’s reading is even more complex.

That’s just it, you set the film in a Muslim context. Is it an attempt to break the clichés that confuse Islam and Islamism?

Radu Mihaileanu: What is clear is that there is a terrible cliché, on the one hand, that combines Islam and Islamism, and that fails to grasp the point that in Arab countries, people are, by nature, Muslim. People must stop calling this into question. It is their nature, their culture. But Muslim does not necessarily mean extremism or intolerance or hatred of others. It is just a culture. It’s just the way they are. People must now be taken as they are. After that, you have to ask yourself questions like: What is democracy in an Arab country? What is women’s freedom in an Arab country? What is really written in the Koran, discussed by many but read attentively by few in its figurative nuance? Because we know that in Semitic languages – in the Koran as well as in the Torah – vowels are not always written. Therefore interpretations are much more subtle and much broader. So I try to shatter all those clichés and, even though it’s not up to me to provide answers, to ask the question: These societies are different. How can they – in their own way, and not in Western way – achieve the right balance and find a democracy that suits them?

By way of metaphors, but also humour, which permeates your film. Is it not sometimes the simplest way to get a message across?

Radu Mihaileanu: On the one hand, I noticed – and this is their mistake in a way – that this is a people with a tremendous amount of humour. That, too, is often overlooked. People think they are tense, consumed with violence… I especially discovered female humour and the poetry of the women. While the women sometimes lack education, they have another kind of ancestral knowledge, and they have obligations, in terms of a culture that is virtuous and thus cannot express things head on. The solutions they find are metaphorical, poetic and often funny. So their relationship with humour is often very subtle. And really, that’s something I’ve dealt with in all my films from the outset, ever since I broke away from a dictatorship as well, and I know that the most “bloodless”, the most beautiful weapon is humour. It always hurts dictators or those who are intolerant. So these women… I saw it when I lived there. I heard it. They handle humour in a very, very subtle, a very delicate way.

How did you go about trying to strike a balance between comedy and tragedy?

Radu Mihaileanu: I find that every day, life teaches me lessons in that respect. Because, every day… I’ll give you an example. Last night we were at a screening in Mantes-la-Jolie, where there were 1,350 in the audience. It was… It was so stimulating, so nice to see all these people together. There were people of every kind: immigrants, French… It was tremendous. At the same time I had the destiny of Tunisia on my mind, everything that’s going on there, which preoccupies us all. And all the things I read on blogs, on Facebook… The Tunisians themselves are wondering where they are going. So there it is, tragedy and comedy or happiness… The people in the hall were laughing, they asked me questions, we joked with one another… And at the same time, inevitably, a great many of us had something worrying, something disquieting on our minds. Tragedy is present every second, every day in our destiny and in our lives. Fortunately we are not always sad, or always laughing, because life cannot be made up in every second either of tragedy, or in inverted commas, of “meaning”. We always need both meaning and what I call this inspiration, the ravage of death, because tragedy is the death that lies in wait. And then sometimes it is qualified by barbarism or something else. And that you might say is the brink of the abyss. Happily by thinking, by continuing to think, you manage to pull away from the brink with a breath of humour. So my films show this same thing, that people become emancipated and manage to get back on their feet and face tragedy, stupidity, all those things – barbarism, intolerance – through humour, through wit. We often forget that sometimes, we talk about humour and call it “wit” so there’s the notion of wit in it, the idea of a game. Life sometimes becomes also a game, and it’s no worse for it…

Are events in Tunisia, with the current elections, a comedy, a tragedy, or something else entirely, in your opinion?

Radu Mihaileanu: What’s happening now in Tunisia cannot be defined in finite terms. You cannot say, “It’s tragic” or “It’s pure joy”.  It is on the move.  So it is a little too soon to define it. You can only analyse it, and the analysis is complex. Like everyone else, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it for the last few days. There’s the liberation aspect, the fact they’ve freed themselves, liberated themselves. By “liberated” I mean they have had a revolution and are expressing themselves. Meaning they took to the street, they wanted to be free, and above all, there’s a young generation that is fed up and is trying to find itself. Now the country is somewhat in the image of an eastern country. There are similarities, even though the cultures are very different, notably in the religious element. But it’s similar in that it is about a country where nobody had ever voted. That’s to say that among the living, no generation has had the culture of voting by universal secret ballot. This is the first time. So for the time being they are finding it difficult to know how to get organized, how to form alliances. What is a secret ballot? So that’s the first approach. The second approach consists in telling themselves that they really want to be free. Another part of the population is really very religious, and thinks that society must exist through the sharia, etc. Another part claims to be religious like Turkey, and here a great deal of attention is required because it becomes almost a linguistic fashion. The Libyans are saying the same thing, and they forget that Erdogan, the Turkish prime minister, has toured all these countries. It makes you wonder what was discussed. And then in all these societies, because it is just the start of democracy, many people are easily manipulated right now. Personally I ask myself the following question: How is it that even today, so many people tend towards Islam or extreme religion?. And here, I try also to analyse our own society. Because of course I know that today, with new technologies, they are very much in contact with our set-up. Maybe there are aspects of our own set-up that need improving. For example, what we offer in society seems to them to be very superficial. And really, the unbridled quest for money in terms of our image, our appearance, even in our own society, is starting to irritate people, who say it doesn’t suit them anymore. So sometimes, unfortunately, the first solution that they have in this quest for meaning, spirituality and depth is unfortunately an answer which can be manipulated by others, and they fall into extremism. So you can’t make too simplistic an analysis and limit yourself to wondering how it is that that, barely liberated, they vote for another powerful, rather “masculine” regime.  So I try to reflect upon that: What are we offering? What do they see when they look at us? And I know that they are looking for a model. When they look at blogs, the poor Tunisians wonder if they might take to the streets again… At the same time they think that maybe they are right: “But wait, it is an expression of democracy. If the others voted in great numbers for this fundamentalist party, then that’s democracy too.” So now, for me, the question isn’t… They did not cheat. The question for me of why, barely liberated, they vote in great numbers for a religious party… Or maybe we can’t accuse them of that, we still don’t know. Perhaps slightly fundamentalist. And what will our alliances be tomorrow? What chance is there of a continued democracy in the future, such that  in the following elections, the stakes can change, an opposition can form and express itself? Perhaps this party, once in power.. Something else I also see on these blogs that isn’t very clear is that they wonder if it is only an election of the constituent, or if they are legislative elections, where a government will be formed and they will have the majority. And obviously a government is going to be formed and run by this party. Then what will it allow others to do? What will press freedom be like? What about freedom of expression, when you consider that friends have already expressed things on the Internet and been threatened?

But then I pay a lot of attention to ourselves as well. What do we offer as a model? I’ll give you an example in terms of the media. This is an issue. I release a film, etc. Today, fortunately, my films have been successful, so in that respect… The relationship with the media is rather a good one. All the same, certain media want to talk about the film as long as it features stars. So where does that leave us? Where are we in terms of talking about meaning with the public? The meaning is all in the packaging, in the superficial. If our society, western society, which ought to be, in inverted commas, the “example of civilization”, is only material and superficial, then you have to accept that other societies do not want it. And they are forced to wonder, sometimes awkwardly, what the alternative model is. And sometimes, the answer is that the other model can only be religious, and thus, for them, spiritual, since we no longer offer another kind of spirituality. There was a time when people like Malraux, Camus, Sartre, had access and they dialogued, if you will, with the public. Today, it is very complicated. These people exist but they are not heard anymore.

What is your personal definition of democracy?

Radu Mihaileanu: Democracy, for me, begins with something simple and human. It is about mutual respect: respect for other’s opinions and the expression of other’s opinions. It starts with two. So in a society where there are two several times over, in effect the expression and the pulse of democracy stems from freedom of the press and freedom of expression,. In general, they come first. That’s to say that one has the right to disagree with the other, to have a different opinion, and democracy, i.e. the legislative system, must ensure that this expression must in no way be undermined and can be expressed by the widest number of people. So that’s what we are going to observe in the coming months in all these countries, where people have expressed a desire for freedom, even if there are also economic desires. The freedom of expression of those who will not be in power, the freedom to be what they are, including the freedom of women, the freedom of opposition, the existence of an opposition, the protection of this opposition and freedom of the press… Is all that going to exist? It’s nice, also, to make a connection between the Arab revolutions and the “Outraged”. And you have to because there is a connection. This is a time of discontent, in which many things, political thought, have to move, and not be just about economics and all that that entails. We are reaching the end of a cycle. The people sense it. The Outraged still do not know what they want instead because there is less thinking on the matter. We used to have what we called ideologists – who did not only do good things, I accept that – but whose job it was to reflect on a society in movement. Because society is moving all the time and the history of humanity is in constant movement. Today we are lagging behind. Society is moving along at a faster rate than our thinking.

Interview: Sabine Lange

To accompany the Special cinema programmes from the Arab world, we showcase five interviews with five filmmakers from Arab countries. How were conditions under which films were made before the Arab Spring and what are their expectations now. First part of the series: The Egyptian director Yousry Nasrallah.

Can you tell us about the conditions under which films were made in Egypt before the revolution and what’s going to change now?
Yousry Nasrallah: Concerning the conditions under which films were made in Egypt before the revolution and after, you could say that legally speaking, not much has changed. There’s still censorship, and the censorship laws are still the same. By which I mean, a first censorship of the screenplay, then another once the film is finished. But at the same time, for the film I’m shooting now, I could present a detailed synopsis of the film to the censors rather than the full script, the full screenplay, which was required before. So that’s already a first step, in that we have managed to change this prerequisite of giving all, all, all, this force that weighs on one’s thought right at the outset, which starts at the thinking stage. But there’s still a lot of progress to be made regarding censorship. What we filmmakers are hoping for, is to reach a point where all censorship of the screenplay is abolished and that there will only be censorship of the finished film; a censorship that determines only the age of those who can see a film. That’s what we’re hoping for, but it will take time; there’s still a lot of work to be done.

Will the Arab Spring mean you can deal with new subjects or treat subjects in a different way?
Yousry Nasrallah: What happens in any revolution is, everything that once seemed like an automatic response – supplied, ready-made responses – suddenly seems fake. So you have to start asking all the questions again! In film, both fiction and documentary, this means giving a free rein to questions. And suddenly filmmakers are in a new position, as are audiences, where we can dare to ask new questions. This is an inherent result of any revolution, revolt or rebellion. The very essence of rebellion is “questioning”. And I think this questioning will now enter filmmaking. The question I ask myself today is this… In the end, it was very easy and very handy to be in opposition to Mubarak. Honestly, you didn’t need a lot of intelligence, a lot of talent or a lot of courage to be against Mubarak. I think that other things are coming out now. Beneath the surface of the dictatorship, there was what one would call in a populist way, “the people”. And now you can see springing up a new kind of opposition to questioning, a way of thinking that is trying to convey other taboos, other red lines. For example, the main challenge now for us here in Egypt is answering the question: “What kind of Egypt do we dream of?” There are Islamists who’ll say: “Egypt must be Islamist.” And if you contradict them, they throw in your face: “Then you oppose the people!” Here, it’s a much more difficult kind of opposition, much more complicated and, in my opinion, much more revolutionary than what we are become used to.
What was marvellous about the 18 days that led to the fall of Mubarak was that all the different populations that make up Egyptian society were united in a common aim: to get rid of Mubarak.
Very good, we got rid of Mubarak. But now, differences are beginning to arise. “What kind of Egypt do we dream of?” That’s much more complex.

What’s your definition of “democracy”?
Yousry Nasrallah: Democracy can’t simply be summed up as the voice of the majority. It’s certainly not the idea that lost of political powers and authorities try to force-feed us, namely that democracy is just populism, a kind of “what works well” or a “what the people decide”. The minority is also part of the people, and a democracy that doesn’t recognise the rights of minorities, whatever they may be, isn’t a democracy!
Democracy is also a matter of recognising individual responsibility. There’s a kind of amalgam like that which often arises in times of revolution where a sudden, rather repulsive populism replaces the notion of what a democracy is.

Is it a subject that could interest you for one of your future films?
Yousry Nasrallah: It’s exactly the subject of the film I’m shooting right now. It’s called “After the Battle”. It’s a fiction based on everything that’s been happening in Egypt since the referendum last March – when changes to the Constitution were voted for in a populist way – and what will happen up until the parliamentary elections in November. So it’s an extremely difficult film to shoot in that the screenplay is constantly changing due to current affairs that are yet to happen…

Interview: Sabine Lange

Photo : © Raphaël Krafft

Yousry Nasrallah – Biographie

Born 1952 in Cairo. After studying economics and political science, he went to live in Lebanon where he became a journalist. He began his career in film in 1980 as assistant to Volker Schlöndorff on Die Fälschung and to Youssef Chahine on Al-Dhakira and Adieu Bonaparte which he also co-wrote. In 1987, he directed his first film Summer Thefts, produced by Youssef Chahine and considered as one of the films that most contributed to the revival of Egyptian cinema. He carried on his collaboration with Chahine as co-director of Alexandria Again and Forever (1990) and Cairo as Seen by Chahine (1991). In 1994, he directed Marcides and, in 1995, the documentary On Boys, Girls and the Veil. In 1999, El Medina was awarded the Special Jury Prize in Locarno Film Festival. In 2004, his film The Gate of Sun (Bab El Chams), taken from Elias Khoury’s novel, was presented in the Cannes Official Selection (out of competition).

Hicham Ayouch stands for a new generation of Moroccan filmmakers. Born in Paris, from Moroccan parents, he loves to create tension within his documentaries and movies. “Fissures”, his latest film, just came out in the French and Moroccan theaters. Focusing on reflections and hopes about conditions of making movies in Morocco before and after the Arab Spring…

Since the Arab Spring, what has changed in terms of film?

Hicham Ayouch: I don’t think the Arab Spring has brought changes in terms of the way films are shot, not in Morocco anyway, I don’t know about other countries. I can speak only for Morocco and my personal experience. I’d just  begun making a documentary at the time of the outbreak of protests in Morocco and I applied to the Centre Cinématographique Marocain six months ago. And in fact they never gave me permission to film! So I shot the documentary illegally, notifying them that I was going to shoot the film. So I don’t think we’ve reached a stage of complete freedom yet. Egyptians and Tunisians, who have had their revolutions, may experience a Movida in terms of film culture. For us, I don’t get the feeling that it has awakened lots of people and talent.

I never use political or social context to make films. I haven’t made thousands of films, I’m a young director. But I made, for example, a film called Fissure, shot without a screenplay, which was also made without permission. It was a film in the Cassavetes or New Wave style, or so people said. In it, people drank a lot of alcohol and had a lot of sex. Anyway, it was released at the cinema. I don’t know if the Arab Spring will open things up culturally cinema-wise. It’s a question I can’t yet answer.

But Moroccan cinema, in terms of its administration, the system, I think that on the contrary they were a little bit afraid of the Arab Spring and didn’t necessarily go along with it. As I told you, they refused me permission to shoot. We’ll have to wait a while to find out if film directors or authors become a bit more ballsy, if they get a little more creative freedom, and see if new things come out.

It’s difficult to predict what will happen at a cultural level in the Arab world in the coming months. At the moment everybody is asking a lot of questions. There’s a degree of fantasy too. I hope that we embrace the spirit of the Spanish Movida movement. Culturally, the Arab world will experience what other countries must have gone through after their totalitarian regimes collapsed. In terms of religion and politics, I hope that there will be attacks on Islam because we need that as well. The problem is, when it comes to Islam or Islamism, they are two different things. It has always been Westerners who have made criticisms in that respect until now. We in the Arab-Muslim world have been afraid, and many artists and intellectuals shied away from that. It’s much more interesting and constructive to criticize from within!

In fact, cinema in a country like Morocco is a very dangerous weapon, as are images in general. Because a country like Morocco has a 40% rate of illiteracy among the population. So for the regime, images are very dangerous because even if an illiterate cannot read a book, he can understand a picture. That’s why they’re so pernickety. Maybe “pernickety” isn’t the word.. That’s why they are so authoritarian, so narrow minded and obtuse when it comes to giving permission film. It is because they are afraid we will say certain things. But when a film director takes his camera and his courage in his hands and shoots a film, he has to face the consequences afterwards.

Morocco as a country is not like Syria, where you get shot at by the army. You have to keep things in perspective. You can have problems with the police, you can have problems with the DST (“Direction de la surveillance du territoire”), who can have you under surveillance while you film, but it never reaches the levels of terror and suffering that people endure in Syria.

So I hope that the system in Morocco, the regime and the Centre Cinématographique Marocain, which is a facade for the regime, will have the intelligence to follow the movements currently underway, the history being made, and give more freedom to the people who want to tell stories – any stories, not just the ones they are well disposed to!
 
What is your personal definition of “democracy”?

Hicham Ayouch: To quote Coluche, or Godot, (editor’s note: it was Coluche), so that it isn’t personal: “Dictatorship is ‘shut your mouth’. Democracy is ‘keep on talking’”.

No model of democracy is a utopian or perfect model. In countries that have freedom of expression and where individual liberties are more respected, as in Western countries, generally speaking, those same western countries are not really democracies because they can take the liberty of bombing countries like Iraq, Afghanistan or Libya, which had done nothing to them.

So obviously as an artist, I would be less subject to political diktats in France, where, say, my freedom of expression would be more important than in Morocco. But in France, there are also economic diktats. There’s a great deal of mass media which belong to arms dealers and big corporations, so there’s an economic dictatorship and an economic censure that does not speak its name.

The really interesting thing now about what’s happening with the Arab revolution and all the protest movements it is that in 10, 5, or 2 years’ time, a lot of things are bound to come out of it on an artistic level, because battles, vital battles, are being waged in these countries: battles of life and death, battles of survival, battles for freedom, are going on in these countries. So writers and filmmakers are bound to produce some interesting work. Indeed in Europe, none of the writing is interesting anymore precisely because there are no more battles for survival, for life, for education, so people have no more stories to tell. Within the context of suffering, of great suffering and war… It’s no coincidence that the cultural eras in France and Europe were richest right after the first and second world wars, and so I really think some beautiful things will emerge!

Interview: Sabine Lange

All interview from the series about Arab Cinema

Hicham AYOUCH – Biographie

Hicham Ayouch was born in Paris in 1976, from Moroccan parents. He studied journalism and started writing and shooting for several French channels and Moroccan institutions. In 2005, he wrote the script of the movie Samba do Maazouz, and, a year later, shot his first short film, Bombllywood. He then left France and settled in Morocco, where he started shooting for local televisions. In 2006, he shot Les Reines du Roi, a documentary film describing the place of women in the Moroccan society. He then directed his first full-length fiction pictures, Heart Edges, which got very good reviews from different sources, including Variety. His next documentary, entitled Poussières d’anges is about disabled young children in Morocco. His second fiction feature film, Fissures, was written and shot in 2008. It was released in France this year. He’s currently working on turning his first written script, Samba do Maazouz, into a movie.

On October 2nd, as part of its “Film of the Arab World” day, the film that won her plaudits as an actress in 2002, “Red Satin”. Today a filmmaker, Hiam Abbas is just back from the shoot for her first full-length movie “Inheritance”, an ARTE co-production.  She shares with us her thoughts on the Arab Spring as a Palestinian from Israel who lives mostly in France and who shot her film entirely outside of Arab lands.

Since the Arab Spring, have there been any changes regarding filmmaking in Palestine or Israel?

Hiam Abbas: I don’t live there. Anyway, the Arab Spring doesn’t really concern Palestinian artists inside Israel. People think and reflect. I have noticed an awakening, and almost on all levels. And that may also be true of the artistic though of certain Palestinian filmmakers. But since it isn’t really taking place in our country, I think that, as always, there’s more priority given to what’s happening within the territories concerning the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. People still talk more today of Palestine and of Israel – a country that remains an occupier of the Palestinian people – and not necessarily of Arab thinking and the Arab awakening against Arab regimes in a wider sense. I get the impression that each Arab country, each conflict, each regime, has its own internal problems which don’t resemble those of the others. We call it “a conflict”, but it’s not necessarily the same conflict.

Don’t you think that the changes in Arab countries might influence the Israeli-Palestinian conflict?

Hiam Abbas: I think everything’s linked; nothing’s really unconnected. It’s like when you talk about politics and not daily life. I see daily life, for a number of these conflicts, as part of the politics of these countries; there’s a personal engagement from individuals to what’s going on around them. As I think everything’s connected, at some point, yes, there will be an influence; there will be an uprising that puts pressure on leaders everywhere to try to get things moving. One image that is burned into my memory is the image of those Syrians who crossed the border into the State of Israel. They were immediately oppressed, arrested and either escorted back to the border or thrown in jail. But there will come a time when we’ll realize that if we human beings stand together, we can break down the real boundaries. But before breaking down geographical boundaries, we must first be ready to break down the psychological boundaries that keep us apart. So for me, this image is a metaphor of my thinking, and that’s why I do the job I do; that’s why I want to tell stories about human beings caught up in such conflicts, to offer a new way of sharing feelings; different stories about people’s inner workings, to which we don’t have access in real life. So, at least when you see them on a movie screen, you get the feeling of taking part for 90 minutes in a story which, in real life, you couldn’t take part in because the people involved are too far away from us.

Regarding all these recent events, when did you stop writing your screenplay exactly? Were the events able to influence your screenplay in any way?

Hiam Abbas: No, my screenplay was finished well before. I had already been paid for the screenplay and had begun preparation before everything flared up. So I didn’t make any changes so the film could go in that direction, because there was no need for it in my story. The story of Inheritance is more about the conflicts inside one Palestinian family living in a Palestinian village in Israel on the Lebanese border; it’s more about internal conflicts against a backdrop of war. It’s almost a virtual war, which hangs constantly over the heads of us Palestinians of Israel, because there’s always the threat of a war between Israel and the Arab nations. There wasn’t room in my story to start adding extra layers concerning the awakening in Arab countries.

Where do things stand regarding censorship and freedom of expression at the moment?

Hiam Abbas: I made my film in Israel. In Israel, you know that when a film receives state financial backing, there will be no censorship. I had no problems shooting where I did. I was inside the State of Israel’s borders, in a Palestinian village not far from the Lebanese border. So for all the exterior shots, everything went well. You negotiate more with the villager or more with the mayor of the village. In Haifa it was the same. I have a hospital scene, a scene in an Arab café in Haifa. For all that, I needed all the normal shooting permits for any film made there. There really is no censorship as long as you don’t jeopardize the State of Israel’s security. For any filmmaker from the world over, whether Palestinian, Israeli – although not Arab, since Arabs are not allowed to enter Israel unless they have a foreign passport – everything works normally as though you were shooting in France or the US. There’s no censorship like there is in some Arab countries; plus I didn’t shoot inside the State of Palestine, meaning neither the West Bank nor Gaza. The whole shoot took place inside the State of Israel. So it’s considered an Israeli movie with all the permits that are given to any filmmaker from the world over who wants to shoot inside the State with the normal procedure of authorizations and shooting permits imposed by the authorities.

What’s your definition of democracy?

Hiam Abbas: Democracy is freedom of expression, freedom to live and freedom to have a decent life. And equality – that’s very important! By which I mean: if I have the right, my neighbour has the same right, wherever he or she is from, regardless of race, religion, personal beliefs, intellect and level of education. We all have the right to a decent life in this life and to express ourselves freely.

Interview: Sabine Lange

All interview from the series about Arab Cinema

 Hiam ABBAS – Biographie

Hiam Abbass was born in 1960 and raised in a village in northern Galilee, in Israel.
After studying photography in Haifa, Hiam Abbass moved to France in the late 1980s an embarked on a career as a movie actress. She earned fame in the role of a mother who takes up belly dancing in Satin Rouge (Red Satin) by Tunisian director Raja Amari. She has worked with top Middle-Eastern filmmakers such as Yousry Nasrallah and Amos Gitaï, but has also been in demand from French directors (Patrice Chéreau, Jean Becker and Nicolas Saada), and the Americans, Jim Jarmusch (The Limits of Control), Thomas McCarthy (The Visitor) and Julian Schnabel (Miral, Le Scaphandre et le papillon a.k.a. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly).
Multilingual and well-versed on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Hiam Abbass was an adviser to Stephen Spielberg during the filming of Munich.
Hiam Abbass had made two short movies, Le Pain (Bread), in which she acts, and La Danse éternelle (The Eternal Dance), which she co-wrote.
She is currently working on the first full-length movie, Inheritance, starring Hafsia Herzi.
We’ll see Hiam Abbass on screen again soon in the latest movie by Radu Mihaileanu, La Source des femmes (The Source), in competition at the last Cannes Film Festival.

A look back at the history of Algerian film with Merzak Allouache, who is as comfortable with cinema (Omar Gatlato) as he is with documentaries (The Life and Death of Algerian Journalists, produced for ARTE) or fiction and comedy programmes (he has just finished The Bay of Algiers for Algerian television). The internationally acclaimed film director, who was condemning religious fundamentalism back in 1994 with Bab el-wadi City, has shown that he is able to film the naked realism of war, the plight of smuggled refugees (Harragas), as well as the mechanics of laughter (Chouchou)

Since the Arab Spring, have the conditions for making movies in Algeria changed? Can you comment on how things were before and after the revolution?

Merzak Allouache: The conditions for filming and the way films are made have evolved in Algeria since this country became independent. In the early years of independence, Algeria was meant to be socialist country with a centralized culture, centralized information, and a single party. This meant that there was a centre for cinema, with salaried filmmakers, and we had film production, right up till the late 80s. Later, a different political system came in, a liberal system. All the state structures that aided production, produced films, distributed them, as well as the network of move theatres, belonged to these structures. The whole line, from production to distribution, was centralized. The entire system collapsed and cinema was privatized.

Anyone who wanted a production company could have a production company and could produce films, the only problem being that there is practically no more funding. Since then grants are available, which aren’t are sufficient, and there is a commission that reads screenplays and decides to supply funding that represents only a tiny proportion of the cost of making a film. And therein lies the problem, in that with this commission, until now, there has been a kind of censorship really, a kind of interventionism, because since the Algerian independence, everybody knows – filmmakers both inside and outside the country know it – that there is mistrust with regard to images, with regard to sound, with regard to the stories they tell. And that mistrust is even greater when it comes to everything that goes out on Algerian television. For my part, a great many of my films have never been broadcast on Algerian television. Particularly all the films which I’ve made since 1993, including one that talked about terrorism, political Islam, violence etc. Since then, with the young filmmakers of the new generation, things are being done. So you’d have to see with the youngsters. Among the older filmmakers, many have given up the fight because they can’t get their projects off the ground. There is kind of a game of cat and mouse with regard to screenplays and censorship.

And since the Arab Spring?

Merzak Allouache: Since the Arab Spring, I haven’t seen any new films. So I really don’t know what’s going on in the Arab countries, what has influenced the writing, whether there are things coming out. In October, there’s going to be the Maghreb des films (http://maghrebdesfilms.fr/), a small festival which will take place in Paris. There’s a collection of Maghreb films, and I hear that several shorts produced quite recently in Algeria will be shown there, but frankly I don’t know what their content is or what they are about. As there are problems with funding, it takes a long time to put films together. I don’t know if there could be a completed film now that was started since February. I haven’t really discussed it with the young filmmakers, I don’t know if they have really been influenced. Naturally, there is awareness of what’s going on in neighbouring countries. Most of all everybody would like to express themselves freely.

In terms of expression, do you think that from now on themes will be tackled that no one dared broach previously? Or approached in a different way? Is that the hope?

Merzak Allouache: When it comes to freedom of expression, until now I have not been very optimistic, because as I was saying earlier, images can frighten. On the other hand, what can no longer be controlled is the independent images, amateur pictures, pictures that circulate on the Internet, on social networks like Facebook or YouTube. And there, everybody is having a whale of a time in all the countries. More and more young people are logged onto these networks and see images. Footage is filmed and very quickly shown. In Algeria, for example, there are riots every day pretty much all over the national territory and those riots are filmed on mobile phones and seen everywhere. So in terms of current events, nobody can do anything about it, unless Internet access is blocked during certain periods, as has been the case in some countries. On the other hand when it comes to fiction or documentary films, I get the feeling that things are more complex. In Algeria we no longer have a state of emergency, but to take a camera outside you need permission to film, so you can’t shoot film or take photos without the required authorisation. The upshot of this situation is self-censorship: when people sense pressure, there is self-censorship.

I think that with what’s going on in the Arab world now, with the information which reach us from Algeria, where it seems there is a search for democratic solutions to all the problems that arise in the country, which is a rich country, let us not forget, and also a country where the young people are really very unhappy, where they set off in small boats, despite the heavy risks etc… What we need is democratic openness! I think everybody in Algeria is aware of the need for this democratic openness. And if democratic openness prevails, it will also encourage the circulation of ideas and thus creativity in the arts, film, theatre, etc…

Thank you for the link to one last question I’d like to ask: what is your personal definition of democracy?

Merzak Allouache: For me, democracy is citizens being able to express themselves, not forced to express themselves through violence. Because if they are given an alternative to violence, they will express themselves as the citizens in Europe do, by demonstrating, voting, participating, creating associations etc…

Interview: Sabine Lange

All interview from the series about Arab Cinema

Merzak ALLOUACHE – Biographie

Merzak Allouache began studying cinematography in 1964 in the directing section of the Institut National du Cinéma d’Alger, from which he graduated with his film Croisement. After Le Voleur, his first short, he completed his training at IDHEC, the Institute for Advanced Cinematographic Studies, in 1967, and at ORTF, France’s public broadcasting company, in 1968. He also worked as an assistant on a few films. Merzak Allouache has made documentaries, comedy programmes for Algerian television, and several feature-length fiction films, including Omar Gatlato, shown at the Semaine de la Critique in 1977, Bab El-Oued City, presented in the Un Certain Regard section in 1994, and the comedy Salut, Cousin ! selected for the Quinzaine des Réalisateurs in 1996.

After a documentary for Arte (Life and Death of Algerian Journalists) and several TV films, the director returned to cinema in 2001 with L’Autre Monde. The following year, he urged his friend Gad Elmaleh, who he met seven years earlier while filming Salut, Cousin! to transpose to the big screen one of the figures of his one-man show, the romantic transvestite Chouchou, in a comedy that he directed himself. Faithful to this genre, Merzak Allouache returned to his roots in 2004 to film the trio of Faudel, Samy Naceri and Julie Gayet in Bab El web, a light-hearted film set against a series of meetings via Internet in Algeria.

Bechir Omran is a Tunisian resident in Amman (Jordan) and he is currently holding the position of Head of Business Development at Kharabeesh. He did contribute in bringing Kharabeesh spirit to the Maghreb together with the founders of the organization. He started as an intiative back in 2010 with a small collectif of talents. Now, in 2011 Kharabeesh is present in Maghreb through its operations office in Tunis aiming to reach Web Arab internet users across the region with its large variaty of content speaking to different elements composing our society. Bechir as the rest of Kharabeesh team belive on the power of online media and the importance of empowering Arab presence across the web.

Please sum up the beginnings of Kharabeesh* from the time before the revolution and give us an idea of the situation today…

Bechir Omran: In 2010, when it all began for Kharabeesh in the Tunisian market, it was pretty tough. We had on-line censorship in Tunisia; any kind of news was controlled by the Tunisian authorities; there were always red lines that you shouldn’t exceed; we couldn’t even express what was happening in the country. With the problems that young people and Tunisian society were going through, it was very hard. We tried to express ourselves without overstepping the line, but it was very limiting. There was no creativity, especially on line. Limited internet meant there was no content specifically for Tunisians. Censorship left no room for self-expression, for sharing ideas and opinions on what was happening in our country. Since then, we’ve had the Arab spring, which began in Tunisia. That was a time just before the stirrings of the Arab spring, which encouraged everyone to express themselves.

Now, when you surf on internet, you find lots of creativity, lots of people throughout the region who express themselves, whether through creative work, or through cartoons which express the country’s news; who use whatever they produce to provide a sarcastic take on the news, politics, political parties and their trends, government strategy, etc. None of that was accessible several months before.

The difference now is that Tunisians, and more generally young people throughout the Arab world, have the courage and feel a responsibility to express themselves, to share their opinions. They are trying to develop their creativity and express themselves on line.

Can you give a brief definition of what democracy means to you…

Bechir Omran: Democracy, to me, is the democracy that the Tunisians are seeking. The democracy to be respected as a human being. The democracy where our laws are observed, where our responsibilities are well defined and where everyone knows his limits in a properly developed society, one where everyone has equal opportunities. So I’m sure this is a period of transition and the coming weeks will be the start of a new century for our country. Inch’allah!

Interview: Sabine Lange

All interview from the series about Arab Cinema

Kharabeesh is becoming an entertaining online publishing platform for creative talents across the region aiming to empower creative talents communities  and their content destinated for Arabs via Online Media. With over 10millions playback monthly on YouTube only, more than 250k fans on its Facebook network Kharabeesh variant content attract Web users and satisfy their needs for local content speaking its local dialect and culture.
Kharabeesh growing network involve today a large and fastly increasing number of talents from across the region varying from creative music, stand up comedy, Constructive Sketchs and short movies, caricatures, modest religious programs, etc.

Kharabeesh video : Diaryde ZABA (You can choose Englsch subtitles by clicking on CC). Its’ the first video in relation with teh Arab Spring publshed on Kharabeesh.