Nearly one week prior to the inauguration of independent film festival celebrating the works of late renowned novelist Tawfik Al-Hakim, the head of Cinema Palace, a Ministry of Culture affiliate organization, decided to call off the event.
Tamer Abdel-Moneim, director of the Cinema Palace, accused the Arab Creators Community for Short and Digital Movies of marginalizing the palace’s role. In a Sunday interview with Al-Masry Al-Youm daily, Abdel-Moneim said the group insisted on referring to the festival as being organized by their “illusory entity.
“How come we have been working with the palace and Abdel-Moneim for more than two months and all of a sudden we belong to an illusory entity? scriptwriter and group co-founder Yasmine Samy inquired.
“Our news is covered by Arab and Egyptian media even though we are unreal? she added. “Even Abdel-Moneim himself screened the group’s films at the palace every Thursday.
Samy told Daily News Egypt that when the group founders met with Abdel-Moneim to get his approval to host the festival at the palace, he demanded that the name be changed to the Cinema Palace Festival, and they agreed.
“However, Abdel-Moneim told Al-Masry Al-Youm that he called off the festival because we insisted on naming it after our group, Samy said.
While Abdel-Moneim said the group members received sponsorships and financial assistance for the festival using the palace’s name as a governmental institution, Samy insisted that no money was ever received and that all sponsorships were in the form of free services or prizes to be offered to the winners.
“We never used the palace’s name while seeking any sponsorship, she told Daily News Egypt.
Abdel-Moneim accused the group of being ungrateful, though the palace granted them license to shoot a documentary on Tawfik Al-Hakim and an editing unit to finish the film.
“Whatever licenses Abdel-Moneim provided us with didn’t grant us full access to shooting wherever we needed, since they were released from the palace not the Ministry of Interior. So we experienced obstacles while shooting, yet we never denied his cooperation and were grateful to him, Samy said.
Samy and her peers were astonished to find out that the Palace was named the documentary’s producer in the opening credits. “The cinema palace offered only the editing unit where we had a hard time finishing only the titles over a period of two months. But we ignored this fact and wanted to continue our project, she noted.
According to Samy, the festival has not been called off, though. Samy confirmed that the festival is set to be held next month at Sawy Culture Wheel.
Arab Creators Community for Short and Digital Movies is an independent entity co-founded by Samy and independent filmmaker Sherif El-Mahdi at the end of 2007. The group, attracting attention on Facebook, were soon joined by hundreds of young people from across Egypt and the Arab World.
One month after the group’s first actual meeting at Raafat El-Meehy’s film school in January, a committee of prominent cinema professors, filmmakers, directors of photography and scriptwriters selected the 13 best films presented by group members and screened them at the Goethe Institute last February.
