|
Italy: Guest of Honor for Cairo Film Festival
The
28th round of the Cairo International Film Festival (CIFF) commences November 30
and runs until December.10 This year, 18 movies from 15 countries are taking
part in the official festival competition. These countries are Argentina, Egypt,
France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, India, Iran, Italy, Morocco, Russia, Slovakia,
Spain, Tunisia and Turkey. In addition to the official competition, the festival
will also include other sections dedicated to movies from particular regions or
parts of the world, such as Latin America and the Arab world.
Every
year, the festival selects one country to be the guest of honor for the
festival, and this year it is Italy. Therefore, there is an entire section of
the festival dedicated to the Italian Cinema, in addition to Italy’s
participation on the jury and in the official competition. Moreover, the opening
film of the festival is Italian and titled Ricordati Di Me (Remember Me):
It is directed by Gabriel Muccino and starring Laura Morante, Fabrizio
Bentivoglio, Nicoletta Romanoff, and Enrico Silvestrin. The movie, which was
very successful in Italy, revolves around a couple—Giulia and Carlo—who both
regret the choice they made to settle for a quiet family life and abandon their
career dreams; his dream to be a famous writer, and her dream to be a renowned
actress. Their daughter, however, is a restless eighteen-year-old, whose
determination brings the disappointments and dreams of the whole family to head,
leading to an outburst of pain and suffering that makes everyone come to terms
with the true meaning of life.
The
jury, chaired by Carlo Fuscagni, an Italian producer and president of CineCitta
Italy, is composed of 10 members, including directors, actors, writers, and
critics from Egypt, Belgium, France, Greece, Hungary, Russia, and Syria. Italy
also supplied the festival with technological facilities that allow electronic
Arabic translations of the movies to be projected onto the screens; something
the festival has not been able to do in past years because of the lack of money
to buy copies of all the movies screened in the festival.
The
Egyptian Participation
For
the first time in years, Egypt is taking part in the official competition of the
festival with three movies—Al Bahethat 'an al Horeyya (Looking for
Freedom) by controversial Egyptian director Inas El Degheidy, Anta 'Omry
(My Soul Mate) by young director Khaled Youssef, and Khali men el Cholesterol
(Cholesterol Free) by Mohammad Abou Seif. Critics and journalists received this
news with sighs of relief after last year’s scandal when, until the last
minute, no single Egyptian movie qualified to take part in the official
competition.
“The
inability of the Egyptian producers to make a single film with high standards to
participate in the festival in an entire year is the problem of the industry
itself, and not that of the festival,” said Sherif El-Shoubashy, president of
the festival. He continued, “This is just a reflection of the crisis the
Egyptian movie industry is undergoing. And the participation of three movies
this year does not mean that the crisis is over, but it is still a good
indicator that there is some progress.”
Movie
Theaters’ Dilemma
Every
year, the management of the festival makes a “gentleman's agreement” with
the managers of different theater houses around Cairo, to have the movies of the
festival screened there according to a certain schedule, which is set by the
festival. This is, however, a non-binding agreement, and many of those managers
do not stick to this schedule; sometimes, they do not screen the movies at all.
“Most of the movie theaters’ managers consider the movies of the festival as
serious, boring ones, which do not attract the audience, and would rather have
them replaced with movies which sell, such as American action movies,” said
El-Shoubashy, “Of course the ideal situation would be to rent these houses,
which is a solution we cannot afford due to the limited budget of the
festival,” he added.
Competition
from Dubai and Morocco
This
year, two other film festivals in the region are taking place, almost
simultaneously with the Cairo International Film Festival; these are the Dubai
Film Festival and the Marrakech Film Festival. This threatens the position of
the Cairo International Film Festival as the most important film festival in the
region. “The emergence of these festivals will not affect the position of
Cairo International Film Festival internationally,” said El-Shoubashy,
“simply because, unlike our festival, none of them is acknowledged by the
International League of Film Producers, which is the only body that has the
right to rank all film festivals, and which recognized the Cairo festival to be
the only international one in the entire region.”
But
even though these festivals might not be ranked as international ones, their
much bigger budgets give them the opportunity to attract big names, thus
catching the attention of the media. Some Egyptian critics fear that even
Egyptian stars may leave the Cairo festival and go to Dubai and Morocco instead,
because they will get paid big amounts of money to do so.
The
Absence of the US and the UK
Many
critics and journalists also expressed their relief that none of the movies
taking part in the festival, whether in the official competition or any of the
other sections of the festival, are from the US or the UK. Although El-Shoubashy
did not confirm whether this absence was intentional or mere coincidence, it was
still welcomed by most intellectuals in Egypt because of the growing feelings of
rage against the policies of these two countries in the Middle East.
Mohammad
Shawky is a fresh graduate of the American University in Cairo
with a degree in management. He is passionate about education and
learning, social development, performing arts, and creative writing
|
