Last Sunday, El-Sawy Culture Wheel hosted a screening of a short documentary film about moulids, celebrations commenorating the birth of a holy person; a world seldom explored in both feature and documentary Egyptian films.
Titled “El-Farghal Sultan El-Se’eid, the idea of watching 35 minutes of standard narration accompanied with sing and dance didn’t seem remotely interesting at first. Yet the film proved otherwise for attendants. Though on one or two occasions, some scenes outstayed their welcome (the dance and music numbers in particular), the film manages to appeal to both the visual and auditory senses.
The film was directed by Aly Dawoud and Mohamed Shahata, who also produced, edited, and narrated the film. Daily News Egypt met up with the two directors after the screening and learned that they are both cultural researchers for the Ministry of Culture.
The pair decided to make this film “to show the rest of Egypt a very important part of people’s lives in Upper Egypt, which is rarely portrayed properly in film. Admitting that they don’t have much film experience or the resources and liquidity to direct the next “Yacoubian Building, they decided to shoot their film using a beginner’s digital camera which is slightly unconventional yet perfectly appropriate for a documentary of this type.
El-Farghal is an annual festival that takes places in Abu Tit, a small town 20 kilometers south of Assiut in Upper Egypt. The festival is held in honor of Imam El-Farghal, the former town Imam in the early 1400s. To anyone not well informed with Egyptian festivals, watching this documentary may seem a little peculiar. At the beginning of the film, Shahata interviews the current Imam of Abu Tit who tells a tale literally called “Alligator Kindness to exemplify the greatness of El-Farghal.
The tale goes as follows: an alligator swallows El-Farghal’s niece, so El-Farghal calls on the alligator to release his niece and warns all alligators to swim belly up from now on so as not to harm humans. The current Imam added that he actually saw three alligators swimming belly up just two months back. The far-fetched story is indicative of the simplicity and strong beliefs of the average residents of the town. This the key message the film is sending.
The remainder of the film is composed of snippets depicting all sorts of activities and games that take place in the moulid. One particularly interesting scene is the slightly longer than anticipated hymn singing (called inshad in Arabic) that, nevertheless, accurately captures the state of pure trance attendants of the moulid fall under.
It was mentioned on various occasions in the film that most activities seen in the film (including the hymn singing) belong to Sufi traditions. When asked why no women appear on camera during the hymn singing and dance, Shahata replied, “The hymns go on from 1 am until just before sunrise; to people from Upper Egypt, it would be shameful to have a woman out of her house after midnight during celebrations.
As an educational film, “El-Farghal definitely serves the purpose and should be recommended to anyone wanting to learn more about religious Egyptian festivals. The sequence of events being explained is executed in a clear, entertaining style, and the thoughts of the directors are well communicated.
Mohamed Shahata and Aly Dawoud will be screening another film later this week at the Sawy Culture Wheel with a similar theme. It too will be a documentary film on another popular moulid called Moulid El-Azra, also set in Assiut.
