This past week saw the final installment of the Caravan of the Euro-Arab Cinema, a touring procession of movies and documentaries spread over three years, showing in various cities in Europe and the Arab world.
As such, one would have liked to have seen the final event go with a whoosh and a bang. Instead, the Caravan’s Cairo swansong at the Opera House complex began with a decided squawk and a flurry of bloody feathers.
The opening film of the event was billed as “Durakovo: The Village of Fools, a French-produced documentary on a modern-day feudal landlord in Russia and the eponymous village over which he rules.
Except that on arrival, viewers found themselves sat in front of an entirely different documentary, detailing the struggle to save a parish in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. Sneaking from the darkened auditorium, your intrepid reporter was informed that “Durakovo been removed from the program on the orders of the censors at the Ministry of Culture.
Ayman Hussein, administrative director of the Caravan, told Daily News Egypt: “We have been trying to get permission for “Durakovo, but it hasn’t been possible. According to the censors, there is a scene that is harmful to people’s feelings. Their main concern is apparently sexuality, nudity and morals, and there is a scene in the movie that shows some men getting into a sauna naked. It’s unfortunate, because the authorities have always been helpful and cooperative in the past.
It seemed a plausible explanation, considering the nation’s moral sensibilities. And yet one couldn’t help reflecting on the sensitivity of the main subject matter: an aging and slightly overweight patriarch imposing his will on a pliant population (village fools) in defiance of the norms of modern democracy. Might there be a dash of political paranoia in the censor’s soup?
Asked just how to interpret the ministry’s stated concerns over issues of “decency, the Caravan’s president, Hala Galal, said: “It’s just a slogan; it could mean anything. They don’t explain exactly what their objection is. So the censor’s actions might have been politically motivated? “Yes, of course that’s possible, she said.
The stand-in opening documentary, “Shake off the Devil, had originally been billed as the concluding work in the program, and it turned out to be rather politically rousing itself.
The story followed a group of largely black Catholic parishioners in an area of New Orleans devastated by Hurricane Katrina. As residents returned to their neighborhoods to rebuild their lives, they were informed by the archdiocese that their parish was to be merged with the neighboring one, and their beloved and energetic priest, Father Le Doux, was to be sent packing. Le Doux’s exuberant yet unerringly compassionate style of pastoral care had apparently rubbed the local bishops up the wrong way.
As Le Doux packed his bags, his flock embarked on a campaign of furious agitation reminiscent of the era of civil rights protests and anti-Vietnam war campus sit-ins. As the replacement priest began his opening sermon, a spontaneous protest began among the pews.
It is powerful stuff, real-life spiritual drama, which director Peter Entell has managed to imbue simultaneously with crackles of electricity and ripples of humor.
The overarching theme of this final Caravan event was documentaries and short films directed by young filmmakers. A fine example was Emad Mabrouk’s “The Color of Life which tells of a woman still traumatized one year after an accident that left her crippled and her partner dead. The film had a reserved and understated style, and managed to convey skillfully a sense of loss, of time passing, and a certain intense desolation.
The same afternoon’s viewing included “Out of Barrels of Sabra, a moving documentary telling of a young Lebanese man called Mohamed who survived the 1982 Israeli invasion by being dumped in an orphanage. An actor, acrobat and television repairman, he tumbles his way through the film, simultaneously conducting tense conversations with his long-lost mother over a crackling international phone line.
Unfortunately, as with several other movies shown during the week, this work was not seen in its entirety. The DVD player had an annoying habit of packing up towards the end of each show, and the audience were left wondering if Mohamed was ever re-united with his mother.
Across the border in Syria, Reem Ali’s short documentary “Foam offered a portrait of a family traumatized by their history of political persecution and imprisonment as communists. Interestingly, the bulk of the family’s story is told my Mohamed, the mentally disabled brother who is reluctant to take baths. The DVD player held out for this one, and the tale concluded with the family planning their escape to Canada, while Mohamed faced the prospect of spending his remaining years in an institution.
The replacement closing work of the week was “Rachel Corrie: An American Conscience, directed by Palestinian filmmaker Yahya Barakat. The titular character is the famous young American Palestinian killed during a direct action protest in Gaza. She had been kneeling in front of a military bulldozer when it ploughed into her, crushing her chest and suffocating her beneath a pile of earth. The movie combined accounts of the daily horrors of Palestinian life under Israeli rule with interviews with Rachel’s distraught friends and family. This was gripping and moving stuff, and testimony to the power the media wields in either revealing or concealing the anguish of this world.
The organizers of the Caravan say their three-year worth of European Union funding may have dried up, but they hope to continue the good work by some other means.
