Film which ijram

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Feature films. More like this Similar Items. Fur- thermore, the arrival of a new generation of artists, as well as an increase in local and foreign production companies, both of which gradually changed older cus- toms, were important factors Ridwan The combination of these factors gave the cinema industry a fresh impetus. While primarily aiming to enter- tain, a large number of these new films, consciously or unconsciously and for a variety of reasons, tried to express ideas that grew out of social discon- tent and denounced the political situation and certain social practices.

The development of Egyptian cinema from on did not dissuade cineasts from 2 It goes without saying that the head of state is always depicted as the savior, and considered a good man surrounded by dishonest and corrupt advisors. Apart from the willingness of the ruling power to absorb anger and to trivialize protest, one can argue that if the film industry, which is committed to profit, produces films that address social issues, then large parts of society must be ready for a public discourse about them.

By paraphrasing Siegfried Kracauer, one has to remember that cinema reflects the expectations of certain parts of society in certain situations.

Without a doubt, this was the case in Egypt Kracauer , Muwatin wa-mukhbir wa-harami [The citizen, the informant, and the thief] initiated this process. This film addresses social change, especially among the elite, who had been involved in the expansion of corruption and clientelism over the last twenty years.

In order to do this, the director presents three ideal type personalities: The citizen, who represents the westernized middle-class and stands for the project of modernization; the informant, who represents the repressive forces of the state that control all aspects of life; and the thief, who symbolizes the nouveaux riches who are neither cultured nor possess any savoir vivre, but who seek to legitimize their newly acquired status by all means available, particularly religion.

The plot of the film revolves around a novel written by the citizen. Symbol- izing the project of modernity, this novel is pilfered by the thief. After reading it, the thief finds the themes culturally and religiously inconvenient.

And it gets even worse: the nouveaux riches finally co-opt the middle-class, rep- resented by the marriage of the son of the thief and the daughter of the citizen.

This minister, however, anxious at the prospect of having to pay for his wrongdoings sooner or later, suffers from nightmares, each one worse than the last execution, life imprisonment, etc. The only two places where he is able to sleep peacefully are the mosque, a symbol for repentance, and the prison, a symbol for punishment.

The second film, Amir al-zalam [The prince of darkness], illustrates the state of society. It tells the story of a home for the blind—a metaphor for Egypt—where the inhabitants are deprived, in an authoritarian fashion, of all rights and contact with reality.

The arrival of a new inhabitant, a then-hero of the war and modernist intellectual, changes everything. Both films therefore present, from different perspectives, the gap between a population searching for a solid foundation on which to build its life and, on the other hand, the elite who are completely blinded by power, financial and clan interests.

The films encourage the population to take its destiny into own hands and stop expecting anything from the failing state. The American threat and the destabilization of the regime that came with the rise of Gamal Mubarak and his cronies—in response to calls for economic liberalization—created an atmosphere of fear and anger in Egyptian society. Several films, on one hand, attempted to illustrate the divide between the population and the regime on several fundamental questions such as human rights, privatization, the relationship with Israel, etc.

Several comedies illustrate this point. As a response, these films advocate political activities outside the confines of the state and the governmental sphere of influence. The film accuses the regime not only of selling out the country, which is rich in resources, but also of not distributing the wealth equally. Desperate, he stumbles upon the constitution of and reads articles 25 and 30 that stipulate that every citizen has a right to a share of the national income and that public property belongs to the people.

In order to have the right to sell the public properties, the hero has to attain the consent of 51 percent of the citizens. He achieves this quickly, despite intimidation by the regime. It is a strong symbol: the population looks for a real alternative to the current regime in hope of a better future.

Having become de facto president due to the plebiscite, the hero undertakes to sell the entire country in one lot by organiz- ing an auction for international bidders. But patriotic spirit, remorse, and the price that foreign investors are willing to pay for Egypt convince the hero that it is not the country that is bad, but its ruling class. He therefore aborts the auc- tion and calls on his compatriots to take fate into their own hands to develop Egypt, a country that has both resources and human potential.

Its leaders put forward a simple fact: the nation state, created after the overthrow of the monarchy in , has failed; its founders failed to install a democracy that furthers development while at the same time respecting the human rights and dignity.

Thus, the only way to build such a state is to get rid of the current regime. A heterogeneous movement, Kifaya nonetheless succeeded in giving hope to a substantial part of the population, especially to some segments of the youth, and to foster a new dynamism in the political sphere Husayn ; Hashim ; Husni Article The public property is that of the people: it is affirmed by the continued consolidation of the public sector that steers the progress in all aspects and assures the main responsibilities concerning future development.

However, these superficial measures did not change much on the ground. The advanced age of the president, the strug- gle between different factions of the regime, and the global financial crisis made things even worse. This systemic crisis provided new opportunities to different segments of the civil society. Indeed, different formal and informal protest movements re emerged in the social space and led, after numerous vicissitudes and coincidences, to the uprising of 25 January The popular cinema of course reflected these dynamics, as illustrated by the correlation between the narratives of several mainstream films and different sociopolitical issues.

Following the example of the protest movements, two types of films were produced: 1. Global movies that tried to describe the totality of Egyptian society and its problems by featuring ideal type characters whose destinies, often parallel, sometimes center around important sociopolitical issues.

Sectorial movies that shed light on specific sociopolitical issues corruption, police brutality, sectarian and inter-religious conflicts, sexual harassment, lawlessness, violence against women, slums, Islamism , and try to present new figures and explore new places. Whatever their genre, one can observe from the topics discussed in these films that, voluntarily or involuntarily, they indicate that a subtle change from denunciation to protest was taking place.

Stigmatizations The first topic that appears in the majority of films either directly or indirectly is the unambiguous condemnation of the ruling classes. Businessmen and the security services, the two pillars of the Mubarak regime, are the favorite targets of critiques.

The anti-hero is a simple security officer amin shurta who nonetheless succeeds, thanks to his uniform, the complicity of unscrupulous and enfeebled superiors and a wide network of cronies, in obtaining power over life and death in a Cairo neighborhood and great influence in other areas.

Trafficking, rack- ets, arbitrary detainment and torture are the lot of hundreds of poor citizens whose misfortune leads them to meet the anti-hero. This provides a glimpse of the power held by senior officers of the various security services. Mean- while, a single person resists him. A female teacher, a symbol of the honest Egyptian youth, refuses any involvement, romantic and otherwise, with him. The security officer rapes her.

Brought on scene in the suitcases of Gamal Mubarak—regime strongman from on and heir apparent of the presiden- tial throne—businessmen are accused of being the main reason for the deterio- rating socioeconomic situation of the population, especially the middle-class. Films such as Wishsh ijram [Look like a criminal! Their lifestyle stands in contradiction to local values and their behavior in public shows little respect for the law.

As with agents of the Ministry of Interior, the businessmen, usually from modest backgrounds and with questionable personal histories, are depicted as heads of criminal organi- zations or gangs.

Thanks to their incestuous links to political power, large-scale use of corruption and matrimonial alliances, they are protected and obtain 5 Some movies showcase officers of the Ministry of Interior as conscientious individuals. The army is a taboo.

He is even tempted to bribe God to attain his goals. When his daughter is hospitalized, he asks his employee to distribute food and blankets to the poor and to send others on pilgrimage. Bobboss shows how these sorts of people are able to secure large bank loans without collateral thanks to the protection they have from the regime. At the same time, the working class struggles to make ends meet. A political double standard reigns in Egypt: businessmen can throw borrowed money out the window with impunity; ordinary people are severely punished even for minor traffic offenses.

The messages of both films are easy to understand and assimilate because of the way they use comedy, parody and basic vocabulary. The majority of films cited highlight the resistance that businessmen and agents of the Ministry of Interior encounter. The young generation, more con- scious and less inclined to be subjugated, attempts to end this unjust hegemony through various means law, love, political action and even violence. See for example Osman — The film re-traces the rise and fall of a university professor in the service of Mubarak while addressing several sociopolitical issues such as the fight against Islamism and relations with the United States and Israel.

This gives the audience a larger perspective of society and its problems by integrating marginalized or even excluded social and intellectual groups. The dramatic growth of slums and lawless zones in the main cities dur- ing the Mubarak era is a remarkable phenomenon that cannot be forgot- ten.

The charac- ters evolve in a closed world where there is almost no way out of the slum, yet they know that there is a possibility, albeit small, for change. This cre- ates profound feelings of frustration and enmity against the ruling classes.

The regime, however, is focused on its survival and only responds with force. The main characters of these movies oscillate between marginal- ization, criminality and religious fanaticism. Their search often ends in a violent and destructive clash with the authorities. In any event, the only culprit is al-hukuma, the government i. The situation is even worse outside the metropolitan cities, especially in Upper Egypt, where some local leaders have succeeded in creating veritable fiefdoms.

Al-Jazira [The island] , a dramatization of a true story, illus- trates this well. The hero, who comes from a clan of drug traffickers, succeeds in building his own small kingdom that he governs as an absolute monarch for ten years, with the complicity of the Ministry of Interior.

It is only when he decides to enlarge his fiefdom and gain national stature that confrontation with the regime becomes inevitable. The regime only reacts when its own security is endangered. A veritable war breaks out between the two groups. The degradation of women has been dealt with in several films, for exam- ple in Ihki ya Shahrazad [The girls of Cairo] and [Bus] While the first discusses the mistreatment of women their legal incapacitation, con- jugal violence, rape, the challenge of juggling work and home responsibilities, exploitation , the latter attacks the sensitive issue of moral and sexual harass- ment al-taharrush from which women suffer on a daily basis.

Both films try to take a comprehensive approach to these issues by presenting the lives of ideal-typical women from different generations and social backgrounds. For example, in [Bus] , three young women from the working, middle, and upper class are subjected to sexual harassment in three different places and at three different times of day.

This begins a long battle to publicize these wrongdoings in order to receive justice and compensation: this is where the destinies of these three young women intersect. In the face of a conserva- tive society that refuses to acknowledge the problem the reasons cited are always fear for the honor and reputation the family and the inaction of the regime, the three women decide to take matters into their own hands and to take revenge.

The regime and the media finally take notice of their case, though their interest is only superficial—society remains conservative and schizophrenic. Historically, the film industry has ignored the issue of the coexistence between Muslims and Copts, despite its importance.

More recently, several films have addressed this issue—directly or indirectly—and begun to break the ice by exposing problems related to these two communities that live side- by-side without really knowing each other.

Hasan wa Murqus is the most illustrative and audacious example of this. The film depicts with cynical, sharp vision the trajectories of the religious dignitaries of each community.

Menaced by extremists of their respective communities, both are forced by a represen- tative of the omnipresent Ministry of Interior to change identities: the Muslim has to adopt a Christian name and vice versa.

Thus begins the immersion of each in the world of the other. This is an occasion to present to a large public some aspects of the traditions and lifestyle of each community that are in many 9 Al-Maslaha [The shit] shows the same phenomenon in the Sinai.

The fate of the two men intersects when they become neighbors and friends and their children fall in love. This relationship, however, is impossible and pro- vokes violent clashes stirred up by extremists on both sides. Popular rejection of the normalization of relations with Israel is nothing new. However, this fact was largely absent in popular cinema for decades because the regime controlled the cinema industry. In this film, formal relations with Israel are to be renegotiated and re-evaluated as soon as Egypt regains its economic health, its political and military power.

Love for the fatherland and respect 10 Films such as Bahibb al-sima [I love the cinema] and Wahid sifr [One-zero] propose to treat socioreligious issues either globally or partially in the Coptic community itself the beliefs, relation with the church, divorcing, etc.

The fatherland is considered as a mystical body in the sense of Ernst Kantorowicz, that is, as the perfect and eternal center around which everything revolves. It has been, from time immemorial, protecting and generous to its children. Therefore, one has to serve it irrespective of social and political differences. From this point of view, the popular cinema plays an important role in defining and popularizing a national identity.

Thus, the impression of the Islamist phenomenon presented in films is often stereotypical and simplistic. He falls in love with a very religious girl. To make her like him, he renounces his lifestyle and becomes more and more religious.

He winds up frequenting religious circles and adopting ideas, which are—to say the least—very conservative, though he does not understand them. A brilliant student, he dreams of joining the police academy.

His application is rejected because only the offspring of the ruling class are accepted. After enrolling in the university, he starts frequenting religious circles.

When he is unjustly arrested after a police crackdown, he is subjected to every sort of brutality, including rape. The only way to get revenge is to join an armed Islamist organization. The team behind Laylat al-baybi dol [The night of baby doll] basically reproduces this narrative. The main character, a respected journalist working for various international news agencies, is arrested by us forces while on assignment in Iraq in early He is thrown into Abu Ghurayb prison and subjected to innumerable atrocities.

To exact revenge on his jailers, he joins al-Qaeda and becomes one of its leaders. Of youth, 85 percent affirm that they are willing to sacrifice themselves for the fatherland.

A simple musician, he is almost invisible and not respected by anyone. This notwithstanding, he secretly continues to enjoy the pleasures of life, notably by regularly visiting a prostitute. The anti-hero of Murgan Ahmad Murgan also illustrates this. When a young Islamist student criticizes him, the latter offers him a car and a large sum of money. Following the example of intellectuals, Egyptian filmmakers tried to do this by rehabilitating, in a certain way, the royal era, and, in another way, by banalizing or even delegitimizing the republican era.

The former kings were regularly criticized for their foreign origins and weak morals. The feudal system on which they based their power as well as their subjugation to foreign powers was condemned. At the start of the new millennium, the weakening of the republican regime and the general disappointment it provoked pushed many intellectuals to overhaul their narrative of the history of the royal era. It was all but rehabilitated in the historiographical and literary domain. The cinema industry quickly followed suit.

In the monarchical era, it was beautiful, chic and cosmopolitan. From on, it experienced a veritable degradation.

The coup changed everything. Heliopolis illustrates this quite well. Filmed in a doc- umentary style, it demonstrates the deterioration and the disfigurement of the Misr al-Jadida neighborhood from onward; this was an area once known for its cosmopolitanism, its original style of architecture and its vibrant cultural life.

He is looking for persons who lived during this time in order to collect their testi- monies. The people he interviews affirm, without much ado, their preference for the royal era, a period of peaceful coexistence of the different communities, when life was less expensive and they experienced greater freedom.

In the s the taboo began to be lifted, at least regarding the presidents that had died, and films presenting the hagiographies of Nasser and Sadat appeared in the mids. The director Khalid Yusuf went farthest by showing, in a montage, President Mubarak as a best man at the wedding of the heroes of Zawaj bi-qarar jumhuri [Marriage by presidential decree] In the 15 One cannot discuss the process of the rehabilitation of the royal era without noting the television series dedicated to King Farouk 30 episodes of 45 minutes each , broadcasted during prime time in Ramadan It was a huge success and contributed to a change in the image of this monarch and his time in the minds of the Egyptian public.

This reflects a reformist option that portrays the president as a man of integrity who is misled by a corrupt entourage. In an imaginary country that strongly resembles Egypt, the eternal president, presented in the flesh for the first time, is forced by American pressure to organize transparent and free elections. As a result of this, he loses his position to a young man from the people after a rough campaign full of shenanigans in which grievances against the Mubarak regime are presented comically.

The young president initiates a new era of prosperity and independence. The film thus proves that change is not only possible but that it will be beneficial to the country. It shows a new Egyptian president, implying that change has already taken place. Organized around an apparently absurd assertion, the changing of the national anthem and the national flag signifying that the youth want to seize national symbols , the film shows the concerns and the relationships of the various social classes that take part in a sit-in in front of the council of ministers.

The protesters participate in the expected activities: they chant, make up slogans and banners, engage in social media and negotiations.