The stalls on your right – once gift shops bearing copies of famous Egyptian paintings – would probably go unnoticed on the walk up to the Manesterly Palace gate located at the southern tip of Al-Rodha Island in Cairo.
On Thursday night, the storage space outside, now the Um Kolthoum Museum, was transformed into a walk-through cinema featuring 11 short animated films participating in an art project titled “Roto.
Using “rotoscoping, an animation technique where artists trace and manipulate live-action film images frame-by-frame, the artists used scenes from late Egyptian director Youssef Chahine’s classic film “Al-Ikhtiyar (The Choice, 1972) as their primary material.
Half of the 11 participants had never made a video before. The project began in December last year with workshops given by curators Nagla Samir and Ahmed Foula.
Participants were introduced to rotoscoping through video screenings following discussions of the technique.
Screenings included Beatles’ music videos such as “Yellow Submarine and “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds – the latter inspired Sherine Baroudy’s colorful production “At Lunch.
Movies such as “A Scanner Darkly by rotoscoping pioneer Richard Linklater and “The Five Obstructions by Lars Von Trier and Jørgen Leth were also screened.
When it came to choosing primary material, Chahine’s film “fit all the criteria, curator Ahmed Foula told Daily News Egypt.
“A common reference for all participants, Chahine’s film, co-scripted by Naguib Mahfouz, was also “a rich visual movie with a lot of actors, a lot of locations, and with the story we can deconstruct.
Featuring an avant-garde style and themes pertaining to philosophical and political themes regarding choice, sexuality and love, the film criticizes the gulf between the thoughts and the actions of Egyptian intellectuals.
Once the film was chosen, participants worked with filmmaker Sherif Azma to analyze its elements and “gaze at the process of filmmaking said Foula.
“Then we put film away and got Sherine [Al-Ansari], said Foula.
Al-Ansari, a story-teller whose work is rooted in oral tradition, worked with the group, starting with simple movement exercises.
Each week built on simple exercises with each participant building on or reacting to the “performance of the one before.
Foula said the final product was not the focus, “It’s not what the 11th person does; it’s how they build the story; it’s the movement. It’s not tracing . and collecting the cadre.
Each movement now became significant and important, so that a film, a collection of 70,000 photos, became a rich source of information.
“Making a first move, getting rid of all the other photos, said Foula, was the hardest part. “Because the film is very rich, it’s hard to deconstruct.
Some like Baroudy, director of “At Lunch, knew what final product they wanted to use, and were determined to follow through.
Participants then went into production where “they cooperated with each other to fill the gap in the other one, said Foula.
“Some of them had technique, some of them had software, some of them were good in voiceover, and had sound equipment. The eventual product was, as with Ansari’s exercise, a product of skills built upon layers of others skills.
Movies then underwent a feedback stage, where 30-second animations were viewed by guests and friends.
Foula appears proud of his participants; he mentions the punctuality and curiosity of Amr Thabit, the determination of Sherine Baroudy, and the poetry in Ahmed Sabry’s work.
Thabit, a commerce student, appeared hesitant about his choice of video. After many revisions, he finally produced his first video “Platform, a “film about the forbidden desires in which a female figure holding a balloon walks along a platform.
As a painter, Baroudy was able to bring colors into her work, and knew from the very start what her product would look like.
Sabry’s “By the River and the film it was paired with – Mohamed Abdelkarim’s “Erotic Product – were perhaps the most daring thematically.
“You can hear sound somehow without hearing sound in this film especially. The figure of a woman in the original picture is at various points in the rotoscoping version, clad with a burqa.
Guards at the Manesterly helped Foula paint the walls the night before from its original olive to white for projection purposes.
At the odd hour of 4 am when all is silent along the Nile, “you can’t see this fake layer of ‘Why you do this?’ said Foula. “When you see [the movie] in silence you can see the poetry in it. Even if you’re not from the artsy-fartsy community.
As for “Erotic Product by Abdelkarim, Foula explained to the guards that the director wanted people to think about censorship by overturning the norm. Thus the black stripes framing, rather than censoring or covering, the breasts. “Erotic stood also as the opposite of “River, where a veiled woman is unveiled.
Although they seemed to appreciate the explanation, the guards thought it was just so much “takhareef (silliness). It’s just oh-so-cliché in cinema to focus on Souad Hosni’s breasts.
The “Roto exhibition will continue at the Manesterly Palace, 1 Al-Malek El-Salah St., Al-Rodha until Thursday, April 9. Tel: 3338 9720.
