Graduates of the Egyptian Film Institute
and the Roots of Creativity
By: Safaa haggag
Translator: Seham Abd el Salam
The Egyptian Film Institute was established in 1959. It was proposed by some cineastes who studied filmmaking abroad. Dr. Sarwat Ukasha, a previous minister of culture, adopted the idea till it was realized. The first dean was the director Mohammed Karim, followed by: Ahmed Badrakhan; Gamal Madkour; Hassan Fahmy; Abd el Salam Moussa,Ahmed el Hadary; Mohammed Basyouny; Moussa Haqqie Mahlmoud el Shereif; Dr. Ahmed el Mettiny; Dr. Mustafa Mohammed Ali; Dr. Shawkie Ali Mohammed; Dr. Dr. Moukhtar Abdel-Gawwad,Dr. Nagwa Mahrous and the current dean, Dr. Rashida Abd el Raouf.
A class of students graduate annually from the Film Institute, starting 1963 till now, except in the period 1972-1974, when the institute stopped admission of undergraduate students for three years, consequently, three graduate student classes graduated in 1972-1974. However, the previous system of undergraduate student admission was restored after those three years. About 60 students graduate annually from the institute. The institute comprises eight departments, each provides theoretical and practical studies. The graduation projects are considered as a major gain, and are important documents that reflect the result of the provided curricula, as well as the thoughts and concerns of the students since their earliest creativity experiences. Moreover, these film projects are the roots that grew out of the students’ seeds of creativity, that continued to emerge since the very first class who graduated in 1963 and up till now.
Upon the graduation of the earlier classes, the Egyptian filmmaking industry was blooming, either with self-educated intellectual directors or graduates of foreign film schools. The earliest film institute graduates experienced a number of difficulties, such as ridicule by the existent filmmakers. The graduates of the earlier classes recall many anecdotes of such ridicule, nevertheless, they confess that they were just jokes by older brothers, but it never escalated to a cross-generation conflict. The newly graduate filmmakers soon mingled with their senior tutors of great filmmakers and cineastes, in contrast to the earlier experiences of exclusive work with their junior colleagues, such as the experience of making the movie “Forbidden Images/Sowar Mamnou’a”, which is comprised of three stories, each directed as a film in its own right by a separate young filmmaker. After that, some institute graduates were mainstreamed in the filmmaking market, and films were made by a combination of crew members from different generations. Gradually, the differences between filmmakers with academic background (film institute graduates) and self-trained filmmakers dissolved.
With an almost individual effort, a great number of graduation film projects could be preserved. Initially, they were black and white movies (up to the mid 1980s- early 1990s). Afterwards, all projects are produced in color. Most graduation movies represent their filmmakers’ style, that would persist in their future movies. A lesser number represent wide discrepancy from the filmmaker’s professional productions. A prominent example is Sandra Nasha’at’s graduation project “The Last Winter/Akher Sheta”, which is antithetical to her commercial productions. In contrast, the late filmmaker Radwan el Kashef’s graduation project “The Upper Egyptian Woman/Al-Ganoubeyya” was almost a training draft of his reputable long feature “Date Wine/Araq el Balah”. Sa’d Hindawie is an intermediate example between Nash’at’s and el kashef’s cases. His graduation projects are excellent and promising of an outstanding future filmmaker, which was expected to produce films different from the commercial mainstream cinema. However, his market productions proved to be mid way between the mainstream and the different cinema. Hindawie’s market movies are based on ideas of other authors: his first movie “Love Case/Halet Hobb” was an idea of the star Tamer Husny; his second movie “Rainbow of the Seventh Sky/Alwaan el Sama el Sab’a” is based on an idea of the script writer Zeinab Aziz. This latter movie was delayed for several years before it could be recently released in a version that seem to be flirting with the currently dominant religious thoughts.
The Egyptian Film Institute owns a huge fortune of graduation projects. Some officials consider them as exam papers, that should not be released, neither nationally or internationally. Others consider them as independent films that deserve to be released and represent their filmmakers and the institute on the national and international arenas, as a type of Egyptian art that reveals the seeds of creativity of its promising talented makers.
One of the earliest graduation projects is the movie “The Hiding Place/Al-Makhba’”, by the –then student- Majeed Tubia. It is an expressionist movie about children’s games, that were used by the filmmaker to express his anti-war attitude. The children play on the roof of a house, then, the realistic play turns into a dream of a girl child singing innocently. Then, the filmmaker cuts on archive shots that depict war horrors, with parallel cuts with beauty and innocence that should prevail. Through the girl child imagination, Tubia reviews the details of Egyptian civilization: Cairo University Dome; Nahdet Misr (Egypt’s Awakening) statue and the Nile. “The Hiding Place/Al-Makhba” contrasts war with life, which is sure to triumph. Majeed Tubia is the script writer of the movie “Children of Silence /Abnaa’ Al-Samt”, that tells the story of the exhaustion war (Harb al Istinzaaf), through a group of soldiers who are eager to avenge the 1967 defeat. The movie ends with the 1973 victory. The most beautiful aspect of this movie is its character formulation. The characters range between dreamy, romantic and sarcastic personalities, all of whom share love of their country and desire to compensate for its defeat and bring about victory. Tubia wrote the script of this commercially produced film, but Mohammed Rady (a graduate of the second class group in 1964) directed it. Filmmakers who graduated in this 1964 class are still participating with their works in the filmmaking market.
Another film institute outstanding production is the movie “Winter/Sheta” (1971) by the director Ali Al-Shubashy (who wrote the script as well). This movie addressed the intellectuals’ crisis in a country that denies freedom. Salah Al-Sa’dany performed the film, while the director of photography was Magdy Abd El-Rahmaan, who is now well known with his concern about film heritage, and who is often seen in tears under the influence of his care about our neglected and mostly lost film heritage. He always calls to treat it as we treat our Ancient Egyptian, Coptic and Islamic archeological antiquities. “Winter/Sheta” is a black and white movie. The hero moves around interior and exterior locations in his escape from the authorities. The artistic tools were so ultimately used as to make us exclaim: where is Ali El-Shubashy? Why did not Magdy Abd El-Rahmaan complete his director of photography career? Such questions and many others reflect the fact that there are conditions, which are not always available, for continuing to exist in the filmmaking market. Some of such conditions are related to the public environment and the market terms, while some others has to do with the individual filmmakers capacity to adapt to the circumstances.
Mohammed Kamel Al-Qalyoubi made a stylistic movie as his graduate diploma project in 1974, which is “What Happened in Yes City/Hekayat maa Gara Fi Madinat Na’am”. He depicted a huge hand as a symbol of authority, in a scene where “The Hand” gives a public speech in front of those who call for freedom, democracy and equality, with parallel cuts on archival scenes depicting demonstrations, strikes and clashes with the authorities carried out by different peoples. The peoples disappear gradually, and what remains on the screen is the word (YES) written in big letters, as well as the authoritarian figure who shakes with sarcastic laughter, while he soils everything with the flag symbol: a hand surrounded by two lines. I see this symbol as one of an enemy’s flag. Yehia Al-Fakharany played the role of the authoritarian figure, while Ahmed Rateb played the role of the oppressed citizen, the painter who is obliged to paint this flag. Both undergraduate and graduate students played the other roles, either on or behind the screen. One of the performer in this movie is Mukhtaar Houssein Youssef, a graduate of editing department, 1975. He is also a script writer, and some of his scripts were implemented, such as “The Most Handsome Guy in Roxy/Ashyak Waad Fi Roxy”. He worked also as an assitant director with Sayyed Sa’eed in his outstanding movie “the Captain/Al-Qubtaan). It is worth mentioning that Sayyed Sa’eed chaired EFCA board for about ten years. The editor of his film is The Syrian woman editor Antoinette Azareya , who studied filmmaking in Egypt and graduated in 1975, after which she went back to Syria, where she edited a lot of Syrian films, specially those of the director Abd el Latif Abd el Hamid.
Al-Qalyoubi opted to make his graduate diploma project in an experimental style. However, in his market practice he started with making documentaries. His outstanding feature-length documentary “Chronicles of a Lost Time/Waqaee’ Al Zaman Al Da’ee” (120 minutes) is about the pioneer Egyptian filmmaker Mohammed Bayoumy. Al-Qalyoubi discovered and dug out Bayoumy’s movies, so he made this film. Consequently, the Egyptian film history was re-written, and many erratic information were corrected. Afterwards, Al-Qalyoubi made his feature films. His last feature is “Adam’s Fall/Khareef Adam”, that won many awards.
The above mentioned three graduate diploma projects: Majeed Tubia’s “The Hiding Place/Al Makhbaa’”, Ali Al-Shubasy’s “winter/Sheta” and Al-Qalyoubi’s “What Happened in Yes City/Hekayat maa Gara Fi Madinat Na’am” are all shot in black and white. All of the three directors joined the Film Institute after they graduated in other university faculties, all of them have public concerns and they selected to represent great issues, shared by many others.
Other outstanding projects were adaptation of simple ideas, nonetheless, their makers succeeded to create short fictions with complete artistic features, as if they were convinced of their professors’ opinions, who prefer that a film student should deal with a project to examine his/her artistic capacities and make sure that they could master the film language to express their messages to the audiences. Mohammed Mustafa’s “I love You/Bakebik” represents this attitude. It is his graduate diploma project (1994) rather than his graduation project (which is “the Dirty Hands/Al Aydi Al qazira”, 1979), because by that time, graduation projects were judged on basis of a work copy, and no standard copies were produced from the student graduation projects. “I love You/Bakebik” is about a love moment between a man and a woman, after they made love. We do not see the love making scene, but we feel it. The movie starts with a man and a woman in bed. The woman is asleep, and the man is regarding her. Then, he brings a camera to shoot her, half naked and half covered by a bed cover. He makes himself a coffee, writes the phrase “I love You” on the window glass, addressed to her, and leaves with light steps, so as not to disturb her. She wakes up, looks at him from the window, while he is outside, writes the phrase “I love you” in her turn. Her written phrase is impossible to be seen by him. She re-writes it the other way round from the inside aspect of the window glass, so he could read it clearly. All of this event takes place through the window glass that is covered with water vapor. The image is marvelous, artistically cinematographed by Mohsen Ahmed. The art director is Onsy Abu seif and the beautiful music is by Rageh Daoud. Mohammed Mustafa wrote the script by himself as a screen adaptation of the story “I and You/Ana wa Anta” by Mustafa Zikri. Ghada played the role of the woman.
Afterwards, Mohammed Mustafa selected to work for a long period as an assistant of outstanding filmmakers, such as Daoud Abd el Sayyed and Khairy Bishara. All cineastes love Mohammed Mustafa, and they call him “Tarazan”, because of his big body contour. The film producer Houssein Al Qalla felt enthusiastic to produce both of his important first feature “Leisure Times/Awqaat Faraagh” and his second feature “The Magic/Al magic”. Mohammed Mustafa’s graduate diploma project “I love You/Bakebik” represents his view of the production of a highly artistic film with a simple idea. However, in his two market productions he was ambitious to present a combination of a sophisticated idea and fine artistic standard.
Mohammed Mustafa’s “I love You/Bakebik” (1994) had no chance to be screened in any of the national or international film festivals. Nevertheless, we still have it preserved in a copy that is a witness of the importance of preservation of all movies, as documents that may be discovered afterwards. As for Mustaf Zikri, he is well known as an established script writer of two great films, directed by Hany Fawzy: “Pavement Devils/Afareet Al Asfalt” and “Devils’ Paradise”/Gannat Al shayateen”. The latter was produced and starred by Mahmoud Hemida, as an expression of his conviction with the talent of both of the script writer and the director, even though they do not conform to the mainstream terms of the film market and industry in Egypt.
1991 witnesses the production of an extremely outstanding movie “Birth of Yesterday/Meelaad Al Ams”, which was written and directed by Ahmed Maher. It is about Youssef, a writer who was assigned to host “3 young men in their way to change”, according to a statement of a representative of the official authorities. The writer is supposed to convince the 3 young men to return to the city, which he himself has abandoned. The authorities do not intend to punish them, but rather to teach them how to adapt with the society. The writer agrees to take the task, because he needs the young men in order to approach Nadra, a pen friend (we will know that his letters were never received by her). The three young men are: Omar, a poet that refuses to be released from prison as an expression of his objection to the public conditions, Nahr, the recruited soldier, who is a child from inside, and who refuses to forget his late chicken (the director himself plays this role) and the third is Sheikh Al-Wakeel, who runs a Quran school (Kuttab) (The role is played bu Alaa Mursi). The cast includes a child, and Sandra Nash’aat, the colleague of the director’s class, and the outstanding many market film director by now. The poet was played by Amr Abd el Galeel, whose dormant talent is recently recognized in the movie “When Time Allows/Heena Maysara” by Khalid Youssef. Abd el Galeel played the second male role in this film, and won many awards for his performance, including a mention by the film critics. In the “Birth of Yesterday/Meelaad Al Ams”, the outstanding actor Salah Qabeel played the role of Youssef, the writer. All of the film scenes, whether interior or exterior scenes, are brightly illuminated, which it seems as an intended style of a filmmaker who wants to reveal the truth to our eyes. Ahmed Maher explains every thing before the front titles, then he leaves us with a house by the shore, with his heroes who utter monologues. Every character is addressing himself, except the child, who addresses them all, and takes clear stances, such as breaking the letter box and throwing it to the see, as the postman never visits it. The child discusses the lessons with the Sheikh, and makes statues (one of them is completed as an enchanting beautiful woman that seems like a real person who digs out everyone ‘s secrets). Then, everyone depart, save the writer, who stays to continue building his sand castle. Ahmed Maher introduced the film by a phrase written on the screen: (My far away city .. you abandon their dreams … while you settle in my past). This phrase is comprehended only after the end of the film. The assistant director was Ahmed Rashwan, who will graduate a little while after Maher, and both are struggling now to find a place on the filmmaking arena, either as directors or producers. Ahmed Maher’s name on the titles was not accompanied by his credit as a script writer and a filmmaker. He just put his signature on the screen. This director, Ahmed Maher, is now the maker of the movie “The Passenger/Al Musafer”, which is a big production of the ministry of Culture and is almost done, waiting to be soon released.
In the movie “The Salt Valley/ Wadi Al Malh”, we recognize the voice of Khaled el Sawy as a narrator that accompanies other intertwined film elements to depict scenes representing the well known Ancient Egyptian story “The Eloquent Peasnt/ Al Fallah Al Faseeh”. The narrator tells us that this story had taken place 2000 B.C. We see also contemporary expressive choreographies, and the narrator tells us that they take place in Dahshur, about 2000 A.D. The music themes are inspired by folk music (Sayyed Darwish’s Tel’et ya Mahla Nourha, the folk song Ya Azeez Einy, and Ya Tali’ El Shagara (performed by the well recognized voice of Ali Al Haggaar). Khaled el Sawy himself, the then graduating student director, is the creator of the music vision. Afterwards, Khaled al Sawi will prove his talent in stage production, with his own theater company “The Movement /Al Haraka”, which he mentions in the titles of his graduation film “The Salt Valley/ Wadi Al Malh”. We can see him performing a dance with his colleague Nora Amin, who will work afterwards as an expressive dancer in the modern Egyptian theatre, while Khaled El Sawy will work as an actor in TV and screen films. He is an outstanding actor who won many awards, such as the award for his performance in the movie “Jaqubian Building/Imaret Ya’qubiaan”.
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