THE WALTER READE THEATER

Cairo Tales: Discovering Salah Abou Seif & Recent Cinema from the Arab World

left: Satin Rouge

This project is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts, which believes that a great nation deserves great art.

Critic Ibrahim al-Ariss once described the emerging generation of Arab filmmakers as "the children of Coca-Cola, the streets and Salah Abou Seif" - such was the impact of this most distinguished Egyptian filmmaker, whose penetrating, unsparing portraits of Egyptian life and society set the standard for socially engaged artists. Born in 1915 in Cairo - the city that would form the essential background for his greatest films - Abou Seif began working in cinema as a teenager, becoming the head of Studio Misr's editing department by the time he was 20. In 1939 he co-wrote the screenplay for Kamal Selim's legendary Determination (Al-Azima), often called the first Egyptian realist film. Abou Seif's own turn would come in 1946, when he directed the musical Forever in My Heart, a remake of Waterloo Bridge. Around this time Abou Seif arranged a meeting through friends with a popular novelist who he was convinced could write good screenplays; that writer turned out to be future Nobel Prize-winner Naguib Mahfouz. The two would form an extraordinarily creative partnership, working on over a dozen films together; in addition, Abou Seif worked with other writers in adapting some of Mahfouz's novels for the screen. Both shared a passion for Cairo, as well as a belief that art could serve as a valuable guide in rapidly changing societies; our series includes two examples of their work together, I AM FREE and CAIRO 30. For their help in arranging this series, special thanks go to the Egyptian Film Center (Aly Abou Shadi), CINAMED/ Cineteca del Comune di Bologna (Maria Giulia Grassilli and Andrea Morini) and the Consulate General of Egypt in New York (Nelly Elorabi).

September also brings a brief survey of contemporary filmmaking from across the Arab world. One approach to the history of filmmaking in the region might be to divide it into three phases. The first, roughly 1930 to 1960, was the era of the rise of the Egyptian film industry, one of the great "classic" industries with studios, stars, genres, etc., similar in ways to the industries of the U.S., Mexico, Japan, etc. The second phase, beginning in the 60s, was characterized by the spread of national film movements in diverse Arab countries - Algeria, Syria, Tunisia, Lebanon, etc. Over the past decade, it's begun to appear as if perhaps a new, third phase is emerging, what might be called a "cinema of individuals." Arab filmmaking now increasingly includes work by emigrants and exiles based in Europe, the U.S. or elsewhere; perhaps the recent wave of new Palestinian films and videos is most exemplary of this. The films in this selection represent a wide variety of styles and approaches, but if anything can be said to unite them, it's the sense that these are filmmakers unafraid of openly exploring their societies, often revealing hard or unpleasant truths in the process. These films are the best response to the assertion that the Arab world is some kind of ideological monolith, reluctant to engage in self-analysis or -criticism. From homosexuality to political oppression, from women's rights to religious fundamentalism - these films present societies far more complex and contradictory than many of us have suspected.

A THOUSAND MONTHS / MILLE MOIS
Faouzi Bensaïdi, Morocco/France, 2003; 124m
Morocco, 1981, a small town in the heart of the Atlas mountains during the month of Ramadan. Seven-year-old Mehdi is a model student, so trusted that he has the special task of guarding his teacher's highly valued chair. He lives with his mother and grandfather while his father - he thinks - is off working in France; in fact his father is in prison, but the adults all do their utmost to shield Mehdi from the truth. Gradually the lies and illusions that define life in this otherwise seemingly tranquil village begin to come apart. Brilliantly composing his wide CinemaScope frame, Faouzi Bensaïdi, who has worked with Andre Techiné and directed prize-winning short films, makes an extremely impressive feature debut, aided immeasurably by a wonderfully layered performance by a young actor, Fouad Labied. Bensaïdi creates an indelible portrait of repression while never forgetting that even under the harshest conditions flashes of joy, friendship and love can be found. "The imagery in A THOUSAND MONTHS has a plaintive found-art beauty that Faouzi Bensaïdi, the director, uses as an elegant contradiction to the deftly woven story lines…A THOUSAND MONTHS contains a thousand tones, each playing off the others beautifully." - Elvis Mitchell, The New York Times
Fri Sept 3: 2; Sun Sept 5: 8:30

RANA'S WEDDING
Hany Abu-Assad, Palestine, 2002; 90m
Rana wakes up one morning to an ultimatum delivered by her father: She must either choose a husband from a preselected list of eligible men, or she must accompany her father abroad. RANA'S WEDDING is a romantic drama about a Palestinian girl who wants to get married to the man of her choosing. With only ten hours to find her boyfriend in East Jerusalem, Rana sneaks out of her father's house at daybreak, looking for Khalil, her forbidden love. Facing barriers that have become an everyday reality, Rana overcomes her fears and doubts, deciding not to let anyone control her life. RANA'S WEDDING was shot entirely on location in Jerusalem and Ramallah. Hany Abu-Assad was the winner of the 2003 Human Rights Watch International Film Festival's Nestor Almendros Prize for courage in filmmaking.
Fri Sept 3: 4:30; Sun Sept 5: 6:30

VIVA LALDJERIE
Nadir Moknèche, Algeria/France, 2003; 113m
The crisis of the 1990s took a heavy toll on Algerian cinema. Happily, the past couple of years have witnessed a re-emergence, of which Viva Laldjerie is an auspicious example. Set in the Algiers of today, the film tells the story of three women: Papicha, a former cabaret star who dreams of getting back into the business; her daughter, Goucem, an independent spirit working for a photographer and carrying on an affair with a married man she's beginning to suspect wants to leave her; and Fifi, a prostitute who thinks she's got it all under control now that she's found a powerful "protector." Director Moknèche's great achievement is to show how beyond the bright lights, bustling city streets and modern urban architecture there's the sense of a country, of a people, that feels spent and exhausted from the constant threat that the violence that crippled Algeria for almost a decade might once again return. Yet, as the stories of these three women show, resistance can take many forms.
Fri Sept 3: 6:15; Sat Sept 4: 2; Thurs Sept 9: 2

A WOMAN'S YOUTH / CHABAB IMRAA
Salah Abou Seif, 1956; 126m
An ambitious young country boy comes to the city to pursue his studies. Soon after finding a room in a modest boarding house, he begins to attract the attention of his ravishing landlady; suddenly all of his well-laid plans for study, marriage and career start to come apart. Perhaps the most remarkable performance of the great Tahiya Karioka, a famous dancer who with Abou Seif began moving into dramatic roles, A WOMAN'S YOUTH has been justly noted for its extraordinarily frank depiction of female desire. As so often in Abou Seif's work, the film's boarding house microcosm becomes a concentrated reflection of social, sexual and class relations.
Fri Sept 3: 8:30; Sun Sept 5: 3:45

AWAKENING / REVEIL
Mohamed Zineddaine, Morocco/Italy, 2003; 78m
Photographer Zineddaine's first feature film is exemplary of the recent trend in Arab films toward films that focus intensely on personal experience, often made around the notion or idea of exile. The arrival of a handwritten essay at a publishing house in Paris is the beginning of Kader's tormented journey, narrated through observations, memories and reflections on the absurdities of the world. The manuscript is the story of a writer in search of a "truth," to declare his distance equally from the oppressive intellectual "thought police" of Rabat as well as from the "aesthetic masters" of the West. A mosaic of personal feelings and lived experiences, Awakening reveals a distinctive new talent and bold experimental approach.
Sat Sept 4: 4:15; Mon Sept 6: 8:50

WOMEN'S LOVE / HOB EL BANAT
Khaled El Hagar, Egypt, 2003; 110m
A delightful romantic comedy that won seven major awards at the 2004 Egyptian National Film Festival, as well as a major commercial success, WOMEN'S LOVE tells the story of three half-sisters brought together by the death of their mutual father. Nada (Laila Eloui), raised in Cairo, is a shy, deeply romantic soul longing for Mr. Right to come along and sweep her off her feet. From Alexandria there's Ghada (Hanan Turk), who doesn't particularly like men. Finally there's Ro'aya (Hana Sheha), London-raised and -educated and a university professor looking for love now that her professional life is well established. According to the terms of their father's will, the three must live together for one year in Cairo before they can inherit his considerable estate. At first each claims her own space, but gradually as they get to know each other they discover how much they have in common.
Sat Sept 4: 6; Thurs Sept 9: 4:15; Mon Sept 13: 3:15

SATIN ROUGE
Courtesy of Zeitgeist Films
Raja Amari, Tunisia/France, 2002; 95m
A fortyish widow, Lilia lives at home with her increasingly rebellious daughter, Selma. Concerned that Selma might be hanging out with the wrong crowd, she starts to follow her in the evenings; her investigation eventually takes her to a nightclub renowned by the locals for its energetic belly dancers. At first Lilia is put off by what she sees, but then an inadvertent encounter with some of the dancers introduces her to a whole new world. Soon she's going back there just about every evening, helping the dancers with their costumes and other details and just enjoying the atmosphere. When one night she dons one of the costumes herself, she can feel the stage beckoning her to go out and perform…. One of the loveliest, and most internationally popular, of recent Arab films, SATIN ROUGE is graced by superb lead performances.
Sat Sept 4: 8:15; Wed Sept 8: 1

AN ALGERIAN DREAM / UN RÈVE ALGÉRIEN
Jean-Pierre Lledo, Algeria/France, 2003; 110m
Forced to leave Algeria in 1993, filmmaker Jean-Pierre Lledo decides to return home in the company of one of the country's most famous exiles, Henri Alleg. An almost mythical figure who edited Alger Republician, the most out-spoken of anticolonialist newspapers, Alleg later published La Quéstion, one of the first denunciations of the widespread use of torture by the French; quickly censored, the book was soon translated into many languages and had an enormous impact internationally. Yet, within a few years of Algerian independence, Alleg would find himself at odds with the new regime and would leave for exile in France. Alleg's and Lledo's return is enormously emotional; they meet old friends and comrades, and try to sense the long-term effect of a brutal decade of violence and assassinations.
Sun Sept 5: 1:30; Wed Sept 8: 3

I AM FREE aka SEARCHING FOR MY FREEDOM / ANA HORRA
Salah Abou Seif, 1958; 115m. No English subtitles, simultaneous translation.
Many of the films of Salah Abou Seif are built around central female characters the plight of women and their attempts to break out of convention. Adapted to the screen by Naguib Mahfouz and Abou Seif, I AM FREE is the story of a young woman who's rejected the place that society has prepared for her. Not sure of exactly what she wants, but convinced of what she doesn't, and her search leads her to experiment with a variety of identities. Finally, a meeting with a progressive journalist deeply involved in the struggle for independence provides her with an answer. Some critics have complained about what they see as the film's overly romantic ending - which comes from the novel - but Abou Seif is actually more interested in capturing her journey than in celebrating her destination.
Mon Sept 6: 2 & 6:30

THE CLOSED DOORS / AL-ABWAB AL MAGHLAKA
Atef Hetata, Egypt, 1999; 115m
The first film by the longtime assistant to Youssef Chahine, THE CLOSED DOORS is a powerful portrait of a young man caught between his religious fundamentalism and the sexual urges of late adolescence. When Mohammed's father leaves the family, he is left alone with his mother, Fatma, a bright, resourceful woman who now must find a job. Soon Fatma is dating Mohammed's tutor. Feeling himself the man of the house, Mohammed feels responsible for her, as well as unsettled by recognizing her as a desirable women. He's not sure if it's his particular feelings that are the problem, or just sexual urges in general; regardless, he starts to plot to marry his mother off to a local religious leader. Director Hetata spares no one in his powerful critique; hypocrisy seems so apparent everywhere that one can readily understand Mohammed's utter sense of confusion.
Mon Sept 6: 4:15; Tue Sept 14: 1

TOUGH GUY / AL-FUTUWWA
Salah Abou Seif, 1957; 135m. No English subtitles, simultaneous translation.
In one of Abou Seif's best-loved films, Farid Chawki, the strapping protagonist of so many of the best Egyptian films, plays a peasant who moves to town and tries to set himself up in the local market. Once there, everything is very different and the rules of life, love and business aren't what he's used to. Abou Seif is especially good at describing the process by which Chawki learns to come to terms with his new reality, and the way he musters up the strength to confront those who would put him in his place. Tahiya Karioca and Zaki Roustom co-star.
Tue Sept 7: 1 & 6:15

CAIRO 30 / EL KAHIRA 30
Salah Abou Seif, 1966; 135m . No English subtitles, simultaneous translation.
It was actually Salah Abou Seif who brought Nobel Prize-winning author Naguib Mahfouz into the cinema. In 1947, Mahfouz, already a widely respected author, heard about a young filmmaker who admired his work and wanted to collaborate with him on a screenplay; that director turned out to be Abou Seif, and the two then embarked on a most fruitful collaboration that would last for decades. Here, Abou Seif adapts one of Mahfouz's earliest "realist" novels, a haunting portrait of the Egyptian capital in the interwar period. Set among university students, CAIRO 30 captures the political and intellectual ferment of a generation searching for identity; the film was a major critical and commercial success, and was even given a special award by the Arab League.
Tue Sept 7: 3:40 & 8:45

THE WOMEN WHO LOVED CINEMA
Marianne Khoury, Egypt/France, 2002; 116m
A fascinating and revealing look at some of the greatest pioneers of the Egyptian cinema, six women - Aziza Amir, Fatma Roushdi, Behidja Hafez, Amina Mohamed, Assia and Marie Queenie - who made their marks not only as actresses but also as producers, writers and directors. Using wonderful clips from their films and other period footage - as well as a fictional thread about a researcher attempting to learn about Egyptian film history - this film is a fine introduction to the "Golden Age" of Egyptian cinema, as well as to the role cinema played in the evolution of that society.
Fri Sept 10: 1:30; Sun Sept 12: 6:15

TERRA INCOGNITA
Ghassan Salhab, Lebanon/France, 2002; 120m
Beiruit today: a city destroyed and rebuilt seven times, and currently existing in a fragile peace. Soraya is a tour guide who points out traces of past civilizations among the rubble left from the most recent Lebanese conflagration. Her friend, Leyla, hopes that a turn to mysticism will fill the void she's feeling inside. Nadim, an architect, tries to imagine how he can help rebuild the city, while Tarek, just returned from abroad, still is not really sure why he went back. Together, their lives, dreams and desires will come to form a composite portrait of Lebanon today, a country trying to imagine a future while still weighed down by the memories of its recent past.
Fri Sept 10: 3:45; Thurs Sept 16: 1 & 9:30

EDWARD SAID: THE LAST INTERVIEW
Mike Dibb, U.K., 2004; 115m
Few films are simpler than documentarist Dibb's important, timely, elegiac study of the life and thought of the late Edward Said: an almost two-hour conversation between the hugely influential Palestinian intellectual and activist, and cultural theorist and writer Charles Glass, filmed in 2002 during a brief lull in the raging terminal leukemia Said had endured since 1991. That said, few works range more widely over the imperatives of an exemplary life committed in every sense: to literature, music, friendship, the necessity of opposition and, of course, to his people and his homeland. Despite his decades long advocacy of justice for the Palestinians, Said always saw himself as necessarily apart, a public thinker aligned with "all things counter, original, spare" (as he quotes Manley Hopkins), the distance of exile allowing him the double-edged vision that fuelled his writings. What the relaxed but always focused exchange reveals is how a singular self is made: complex, provocative, resonant with hybrid, migrant voices. And how that self seeks fully to engage with the societies.
Sat Sept 11: 6:15; Mon Sept 13: 1
Thurs Sept 16: 7:15

THE MURDERED SUN / LE SOLEIL ASSASSINÉ
Abdelkrim Bahloul, Algeria/France/Belgium, 2003; 85m
Algiers, the early 70s. Two young men, Hamid and Belkacem, write and perform a play and, despite its enthusiastic reception, learn that their work has been eliminated as it was performed in French. Their disappointment, however, is quickly forgotten when they are congratulated backstage by the poet Jean Senac. A pied-noir (Algerian-born Frenchman) who chose to stay on in Algeria after independence, Senac had become a popular radio show host. They become close friends with Senac, forming part of his inner circle and allying themselves with him in the fight against increasing government control of culture. Then one night Senac is found dead in his home; after a brief investigation, Hamid is accused of the crime. Charles Berling gives one of his finest performances as Senac, an ambiguous figure whose total dedication to his adopted country makes him seem suspect. The film has a wonderful period feel and effectively captures the sense of a culture beginning to feel increasingly closed and isolated.
Sat Sept 11: 8:45; Tue Sept 14: 3:15
Thurs Sept 16: 5:30

SACRIFICES / SUNDUK AL-DUNYA
Oussama Mohammad, Syria/France, 2003; 113m
Moscow-trained Oussama Mohammad made a powerful impression with his first film, Stars in Broad Daylight (1988), shown widely around the world but still not released in Syria. With his second film, called SACRIFICES in its international release but whose Arabic title translates to "Box of Life," Mohammad again creates a visually stunning, densely metaphoric study of a family. Living in a house perched precariously on a mountainside, three related families await the death of their common patriarch, as well as news as to which grandson will be designated his heir. When the man dies without naming anyone, the families begin to fight among themselves, as each prospective heir starts to follow his own path. Mohammad fills his frames with visual rhymes and reflections, qualities that also feature prominently in the narrative. Despite the differences between the three young men who become the film's focus, each seems destined to make the same mistakes, trapped as they are within structures and conventions that make escape seemingly impossible. A challenging, bold work from a major talent.
Sun Sept 12: 8:40; Thurs Sept 16: 3:15

THE TRIAL 68 / EL KADEYA 68
Salah Abou Seif, 1968; 115m. No English subtitles, simultaneous translation.
The defeat of Egypt and other Arab nations by Israel in the 1967 Six-Day War led to a massive questioning and reconsideration of recent history. Several of the finest Egyptian films emerged from this experience - works such as Shadi Abdelsalaam's The Night of Counting the Years and Youssef Chahine's The Choice - and to their number one could add Abou Seif's THE TRIAL 68. While some routine maitenance is being carried out, a large crack appears in an apartment building. The problem is not seriously addressed, but the crack is merely plastered over, becoming a tragedy just waiting to happen. Eventually the whole affair is referred to the courts, which is when everyone's problems really begin. A harsh, at times even bitter satire, THE TRIAL 68 was actually banned at first, its portrait of a society rife with corruption and bad faith seemingly striking too close to home. Wed Sept 15: 2 & 6:15

THE WATER BEARER IS DEAD / AL-SAQQA MAT
Salah Abou Seif, 1977; 100m
Generally seen as Abou Seif's last major work, THE WATER BEARER IS DEAD is a powerful and affecting portrait of two men. One, the water bearer of the title, lost his wife twenty years earlier and continues to mourn her passing. The other, a mortician, lives surrounded by death, and has learned to cope with that by trying to live each moment for the maximum pleasure it can give him. The encounter between these two opposites will inexorably lead to a kind of synthesis that will affect not only them but their surrounding community as well. Abou Seif was able to coax Tahiya Karioka out of retirement for a noteworthy role here; the film also stars Izzat al-Alaili and Farid Chawki.
Wed Sept 15: 4:15 & 8:30

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