Alia El-Bialy* outlines the philosophy behind Cairo's upcoming and first Women's Film Festival The Cadre Foundation, a non-profit audio-visual organisation, is staging the first Women's Film Festival in Cairo to promote culture, human rights, and contribute towards the goal of achieving total equality between women and men. The festival will afford the opportunity to those devoting their art and energy to formulating a more authentic image of their culture to express their many different and contradictory visions and aspirations through film. The festival will include screenings of 65 films from all over the world relevant to women's issues by women or men directors. It will take place 8-16 March 2007, coinciding with the celebration of International Women's Day. At first glance, we might ask ourselves what brings so many disparate filmmakers together in one festival? The common denominator is a general concern for "gender issues", with all the contradictory currents the term contains. More than at any other time, today critical eyes are focused on women, their social position in the spheres of art, literature, religion, politics, economics and history. The focus, however, is usually on the shortcomings of women rather than on their accomplishments. In these changing times, women, together with men, have in film a legitimate medium for expressing their views and for demanding their rights. The stories that can be told in film supply us with elements that help us construct the outlines of, if carefully defined, a better assessment of the situation of modern women today. Like tales from the Arabian Nights, this festival will consist of an intricate and assorted weave of films from all over the world: from Greece, Egypt, France, New Zealand, Afghanistan, Germany, and others. Together they form a homogeneous whole eagerly anticipated by audiences at the Creativity Centre on the premises of the Cairo Opera House, and, simultaneously, at the Alexandria Library. The festival is designed to reflect the rhythm and beat of the big city and it's flashing neon lights. But it also recognises the challenge of "No Entry" signs attached to certain topics or films that are officially banned. Some of the films made by young Egyptian filmmakers constitute a form of exorcism or revolutionary self- fulfilment. These films deal with taboo subjects that translate the inner vision and message of filmmakers into artistic creation. What we see here are young Egyptian artists expressing in film an authentic yet cruel image of life and its sometimes-ugly content. Working from a need for self-renewal and an insatiable and infinite quest for discovery, filmmakers demystify symbols and make change a possibility. Such filmmaking is a free and responsible spirit that in contest and mediation expresses the discomfort of fellow countrymen in general, and of women in particular. The films gathered for this festival show the awareness and sensitivity of women to their marginalised status, their lack of freedom, and the way they see themselves. They show how women evaluate their own social identity so as to enable them to create a new image of themselves. In doing so, these films help the audience gain insight into the beauty and difficulty of womanhood. By looking at the plight of women and portraying it in their work, the festival's filmmakers strive to come into contact with the soul, and in this particular instance the mysterious hidden essence of women and their suffering that is rooted in ancient traditions that remain powerful in our present everyday life. Cinema has made a vast contribution recently to altering stereotypes or archetypal images of women. Happily, many new films are a far cry from the repetitive and abused and clichéd representations that often plague popular consciousness. Many films to be screened during the festival address the possibility of women having their own cinematic language. Do distinguished female directors such as Agnes Varda, Jane Campion or Nicki Caro tackle their subjects differently from male directors, and if so how? Integral to the festival, seminars will be held following screenings -- be they documentaries or fiction, films on female genital mutilation, stories of real life, heroism, intolerance and injustice, and the horrors of war and destruction -- to discuss freedom of expression and discrimination against women. During the festival, the pioneers of cinema will not be overlooked. Each year, tribute will be paid to one such pioneer. This will remind the younger generations of those who tilled the land before them. One notable item in the first Women's Film Festival in Cairo is an item celebrating the centenary of Egyptian cinema, celebrated by a screening of "Layla Al-Badawiya" the first film ever made by a female Egyptian film director, Bahiga Hafez. This film was made in 1937 and runs for 115 minutes. The importance of this film festival -- and hopefully many more that are to follow on a yearly basis -- lies in the role that cinema can play in shedding light, for a wide audience, on the deep socio-cultural context within which we live. In organising the first Women's Film Festival in Cairo, the Cadre Foundation aims to underwrite the importance of cultural identity, the democratisation of culture, freedom of expression and tolerance. It hopes to do so by using film, in its diversity and common spirit, to build a more coherent image of the world around us. * The writer is director of the first Women's Film Festival in Cairo. The Cadre Foundation organises film festivals, exhibitions, workshops, seminars, lectures, training courses, and publishes books.
