Faizal Khan

In Egyptian director Magdy Ahmed Ali’s new film Mawlana (The Preacher), shock and dismay dominate the last scenes of the movie that show a terror attack on a church in Cairo. The day Ali’s film was screened at the 39th Cairo International Film Festival on November 24, a terror attack on a mosque in Sinai, Egypt, killed more than 300 worshippers. In the Middle East, which is slowly recovering from revolutions that shook the region six years ago, fiction and reality readily swap roles in everyday life. Ali’s Mawlana is itself a telling comment on the bombing of a chapel next to the famous Coptic Christian church in old Cairo in December last year, which killed 30 churchgoers.

The latest terrorist violence in Sinai had an impact on the biggest film festival in the Arab world too. Many filmmakers, writers and artists gathered at the Cairo Opera House, the main venue of the festival, to condemn the attack. “Screening films is our answer to the violence,” said Cairo festival president Magda Wassef, who had earlier announced the festival’s decision to continue despite the incident. “Art will always prevail,” she said.

Showing solidarity

Many Arab filmmakers came to show their solidarity with fellow artists. They were joined by political leaders. “An explosion in a mosque on a Friday is a huge tragedy,” said Egyptian member of parliament Alla Aped. The Cairo festival, which began on November 21 and concluded on November 30, had 175 films from around the world, including eight from India. An Indian—Mumbai film festival’s creative director Smriti Kiran—was a member of the international jury for the Golden Pyramid, the top prize of the festival.

“A film festival has to focus on the violence in society,” said the festival’s artistic director Youssef Cherif Rizkallah. The festival, known for its selection of socially relevant films that reflect the pulse of the turbulent Arab world, is an influential event in the cultural calendar of the Middle East. In the past several years, it has screened films dealing with the revolution and its aftermath from Arab countries, such as Tunisia, Morocco and Egypt. Films from war-ravaged Syria are a regular part of the festival programme.

The Bees’ Way, a feature film made in conflict-ridden Syria this year, competed with films from Morocco, Lebanon and Tunisia in the Horizon of New Arab Cinema section of the festival. In the film, highly revered Syrian director Abdullatif Abdulhamid deals with the ongoing conflict in his country through a love story.

The revolutions in the region have certainly helped filmmakers. “Specifically for Tunisia, the revolution has helped the film industry,” says Rym Ben Messaoud, an actor and artist in Tunisia, where the Arab revolution first began six years ago. “There is a new wave of films representing new ideas,” says Messaoud. Many films, such as Abdulhamid’s The Bees’ Way, choose humour and satire to show societal tensions. “It is the best way to tell a story without dramatising the situation because there is a lot of drama already around,” says Messaoud. Like Tunisia, filmmakers in Egypt, too, are handling the serious issues confronting their society through the camera.

Capturing confusion

The world of cinema is helping Arab filmmakers question both corrupt politicians and religious extremists. After the attack in Sinai, the anger of Arab artists erupted also in speeches at a seminar organised by the Cairo film festival. “Women are the worst victims of a terror attack,” said Egyptian actor and Cairo film festival honorary president Youssra. “Cinema has a big role to play in reflecting the conditions of women,” said documentary filmmaker Mariam Naoom at the seminar.  Clearly, Arab filmmakers are using the tool of cinema to not just entertain, but educate and protest as well.

Faizal Khan is a freelancer