Posts tagged film

Is Arab cinema on the cusp of a potential renaissance?

The Arab spring has focused western attention on the Arab world in an unprecedented way. While events in Bahrain, Libya and Syria have turned progressively more violent, there was a period last year when Arab youth inspired onlookers with their courage and thoroughly modern attitudes. However, for a region of more than 300 million people, and with a rich tradition of folklore and storytelling, the Arab world has been historically underserved by its cinema. Egypt can boast of a proud film-making industry that dates back more than a century but, beyond that, the picture has often been less encouraging.

By Tarak Ben Ammar

Guardian

1/2 Revolution ½ Revolution is a personal, intimate story from the Arab Spring: a group of friends living in downtown Cairo struggle to stay together during the first chaotic days of the Egyptian Revolution. As waves of protests escalate in their neighborhood next to Tahrir Square, directors Omar Shargawi and Karim El Hakim take to the streets to capture the historical events unfolding around them. But as the violence and uncertainty builds, Karim and his young family’s apartment becomes an epicenter of activity as worried friends and neighbors flock together in a bid to survive the counter punches thrown by police and the armed gangs of pro-Mubarak thugs swarming the streets under their balcony. The film is the first film that considers the 25th of January revolution an incomplete revolution, which has been proven by the latest events in Egypt. The film’s name was decided on from the first days of its shooting, where Omar and Karim considered that the title reflects on what happened to the ongoing Egyptian revolution. The film’s team is currently working on the film’s website which is going to be the first of its kind for a documentary film about the revolution.

1/2 Revolution

½ Revolution is a personal, intimate story from the Arab Spring: a group of friends living in downtown Cairo struggle to stay together during the first chaotic days of the Egyptian Revolution. As waves of protests escalate in their neighborhood next to Tahrir Square, directors Omar Shargawi and Karim El Hakim take to the streets to capture the historical events unfolding around them. But as the violence and uncertainty builds, Karim and his young family’s apartment becomes an epicenter of activity as worried friends and neighbors flock together in a bid to survive the counter punches thrown by police and the armed gangs of pro-Mubarak thugs swarming the streets under their balcony.

The film is the first film that considers the 25th of January revolution an incomplete revolution, which has been proven by the latest events in Egypt. The film’s name was decided on from the first days of its shooting, where Omar and Karim considered that the title reflects on what happened to the ongoing Egyptian revolution. The film’s team is currently working on the film’s website which is going to be the first of its kind for a documentary film about the revolution.

half-revolution.com

Mosireen is a non-profit media centre in Downtown Cairo born out of the explosion of citizen journalism and cultural activism in Egypt during the revolution. Armed with mobile phones and cameras, thousands upon thousands of citizens kept the balance of truth in their country by recording events as they happened in front of them, wrong-footing censorship and empowering the voice of a street-level perspective.

Mosireen, in just three months of production, has become the most viewed non-profit YouTube channel in Egypt of all time.

(Video: Our Revolution Continues by Mosireen)

Deliver Syria So That It Regains the Right to Live and to Create!

The following is an open letter by Syrian artists published in Le Monde:

The first reaction of the Syrian regime against the uprising was to kill unarmed civilians. Then he announced reforms and killed thousands of others. Unfortunately, Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad can not reform the dead and give life. Only a future ensuring the cessation of violence can reform “life”.

Today, when we speak to the Syrians, we do in meditation, in order to touch freedom. We all tried to resist through art and freedom of expression, although the time breeze beings before reselling .

Fate has condemned us to appear before the slaves of mukhabarat (Syrian secret services) , happy to find there the opportunity to spread their knowledge of poetry, music, cinema and theater. Some of us, if not all, have chosen to bend the head, to take refuge in silence and live with slavery.

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Berlinale 2012: FOCUS ON THE ARAB SPRING - “FROM AND ABOUT THE ARAB WORLD”

A little more than a year ago, radical political and social changes in the Arab world were triggered by a series of mass uprisings and demonstrations. At times bloody, the revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt were only the start. Gaddafi’s fall in Libya followed, as did unrest in other countries of the Maghreb and Mashreq. Civil war-like conditions still prevail in Syria today.

Social networks as well as the many films of these major protest movements and the ensuing violence have contributed substantially to the perception of these uprisings in the Arab world. Pictures from Tahrir Square in Cairo have already become a part of our collective visual memory.

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berlinale.de

Tunisian Film Festival in Hollywood: January 10 -12, 2012

“Movies are the ambassadors of a culture.”

Dhia Rabiai, Film Festival Manager

Four Women One Revolution

A really inspiring discussion about the ongoing revolution in Egypt and soon to be released film, ‘If’ at PopTech. 

alfilm.de

18 Days Trailer

A group of ten directors, twenty or so actors, six writers, eight directors of photography, eight sound engineers, five set designers, three costume designers, seven editors, three post-production companies, and about ten technicians have agreed to act fast and shoot, with no budget and on a voluntary basis, ten short films about the January 25 revolution in Egypt. Ten stories they have experienced, heard or imagined. All the proceeds of this movie will be devoted to organizing convoys to provide political and civic education in the villages of Egypt.

Mizna’s Twin Cities Arab Film Festival Mizna’s 7th Twin Cities Arab Film Festival, which runs from November 10-13 at the Heights Theatre, proves to be especially poignant in the wake of the Arab Spring—the wave of revolutionary demonstrations and protests in the Middle East that began a year ago. With a wealth of documentaries, shorts and features, art converges with revolution in original ways.

Mizna’s Twin Cities Arab Film Festival

Mizna’s 7th Twin Cities Arab Film Festival, which runs from November 10-13 at the Heights Theatre, proves to be especially poignant in the wake of the Arab Spring—the wave of revolutionary demonstrations and protests in the Middle East that began a year ago. With a wealth of documentaries, shorts and features, art converges with revolution in original ways.