They may both begin with C, writes Samir Farid, but then so does codswallop Whoever owns a copy of the 8 November 2006 issue of the daily Ahram should hold on to it because it will eventually fetch a tidy sum as a rare historical document. The issue carried an advertisement for the film Dunya (Kiss Me Not on the Eyes), directed by Lebanese filmmaker Jocelyne Saab, announcing that it would be screened in 17 cinemas in Cairo and other cities. Only the film never made it to the cinemas, not even for a single screening. It is an unprecedented event in the history of Egyptian cinema. It was only natural to assume that the Censorship bureau had banned the film; I am sure I was not the only one to have reached this conclusion. But when I phoned Ali Abu Shadi, the director of the Censorship bureau, he said he had not banned the film though he had requested that a scene showing an unsterilised blade about to be used in the circumcision of a young girl be cut out. The reason why the film was not screened, he continued, was that the director had not paid LE120,000 in fees due to three syndicates -- the cineastes', the actors' and musicians' -- and that the Censorship bureau cannot grant screening permission to any film without these fees having first been paid. I asked him whether these fees are fixed, and Abu Shadi explained that they were discretionary, set according to the assessments of the three syndicates. Saab was then in Cairo, getting ready to leave for Tunisia where her film was going to be screened at the Carthage International Film Festival. Over the phone I asked her why she hadn't paid the fees to the three syndicates. She said she had received no advance notice that she was liable for these fees and was not prepared to pay them on the eve of screening. She added that her agreement with the Arab Company, run by actress Isaad Younes, to screen the film in its cinemas included the company paying all expenses involved in pre-screening publicity. Although the company did foot the publicity bill, it refused to pay the syndicate fees. Did Younes think she would be unable to recoup the LE120,000 from the box office of the 17 cinemas in which Dunya was scheduled to be screened? It seems unlikely given that the film stars singer Mohamed Mounir and actress Hanan Turk, and tickets are sold at LE25. Or is there a link between the fact that the film is the last in which Hanan Turk appeared before taking the veil? Her announcement that she had decided not to act in any film without the veil caused a furore and the fact that this was her last, unveiled appearance could well have served to attract a curious audience to the cinemas. It is certainly odd that a film should be withdrawn at the last minute, following the appearance of a paid ad in the Ahram. Elsewhere, censorship bureaus give or withhold permission to screen films. In Egypt, however, new forms of censorship have started to emerge, the most recent victim of which could well be Dunya. That the film was not released, even after it was advertised, is a fact; so if it was not an official censorship decision, then what other party decided it should not appear on Egyptian screens? Last May posters and billboards appeared advertising Ron Howard's Da Vinci Code, the Egyptian release of which was supposed to coincide with the film's release in the rest of the world. The Da Vinci Code was the subject of heated debate in the press, with many calling for it to be banned. The matter was even raised in parliament, which called for the film not to be screened, a previously unheard of parliamentary intervention. The film, as is well-known, did not appear in Egyptian cinemas; once again the director of the Censorship bureau said his office had no hand in the ban, announcing only that the distributor had not sent a copy to his office in the first place, so no decision on whether or not it could be screened had been made. It is perfectly possible -- I would suggest very likely -- that the Censorship bureau asked the distribution company not to submit a copy of the film so that it could then avoid issuing a decree banning it. Given the extent of the distribution company's interest in keeping on the right side of the Censorship bureau it would be in no position to refuse such a request. It appears that here too there is what I have called "an exchange of repressive interests" at work, similar, perhaps, to what happened when the Tunisian Embassy in Damascus requested that a book about Tunisia be banned in Syria. At the time Al-Hayat quoted from an official Tunisian communiqué that pointed out that the Syrian embassy in Tunis had in the past requested the banning of a film about Syria due to be screened in competition at the Carthage Film Festival. The Tunisian authorities consented, a favour repaid by the Syrian authorities who banned the book on Tunisia -- a very clear case of you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours. Last July the Censorship bureau insisted the title of a film by Ali Abdel-Khalek, Zaza Ra'is Gomhouriyya (Zaza, the President), be reduced to just Zaza. They also insisted several scenes be cut. It was not the first time they had tampered with the production; even before filming, before approving the script, they had insisted the film's setting be relocated to some other country, and not Egypt, which had only recently witnessed presidential elections. When Dunya was screened out of competition at the Cairo International Film Festival last year it stirred much controversy, and the debate degenerated into a battle between those for and those against the film. The film addresses the issue of female genital mutilation in Egypt; there were those who refuse to accept that the practice is widespread in Egypt and others who, conceding that such practices occur, objected that they be addressed by a Lebanese director. It is worth mentioning that it took a year for permission for filming to be obtained, responsibility being shunted between various censorship committees, and the permit was issued only after the intervention of high-profile campaigners who support women's rights. Dunya 's problem was compounded when its star took the veil; it is no secret that actresses who become veiled often seek to prevent the screening of films in which they had appeared unveiled, sometimes going so far as buying up the rights to prevent future screenings. When Abbas Mahmoud Al-Aqqad, one of Egypt's foremost writers, accepted the post of censor of printed media in the 1930s, he said his decision was a result of his opposition to all forms of totalitarianism, be they Nazi, Fascist or Communist. Indeed, Al-Aqqad was attacked by name in radio broadcasts made by the Arabic service of Radio Berlin under the Nazis; one reason Radio Berlin had launched an Arabic programme, it was said at the time, was to counter Al-Aqqad's anti-Fascist writings. When Naguib Mahfouz accepted a position within the censorship office in the 1960s, he commented at the time that he was obliged to take up the post as an employee of the ministry of culture, and could not, at the time, afford to live without such employment. Tellingly, neither Al-Aqqad nor Mahfouz ever claimed that censorship could be used to defend freedom; they were, after all, both products of Egypt's liberal years between 1923 and 1953. Later censors, those who occupied censorship posts in the last decades of the 20th century, men like Madkur Thabet and Ali Abu Shadi, are essentially products of the post-1952 intellectual climate. "Censorship provides a paradise for creators", a bizarre assertion, perhaps, but one nonetheless made in the headline, spread across two pages of the newspaper Akhbar Al-Nigoum, to accompany an interview with Abu Shadi two months ago. It is an odd paradise, and requires three entry visas for admission as far as filmmakers are concerned; first they must obtain approval for the scenario of the film before any shooting can begin, then permission to shoot, then permission to release what they have shot. This final permit is quite amazing; on the reverse of the document is the printed disclaimer that permission "can be withdrawn at any time, and for any reason". Welcome to paradise, where carrying a film camera on the street without a permit is a criminal offence. The writer, a film critic and historian, is the author of Tarikh Al-Riqaba 'Ala Al-Sinima Fi Misr (The History of Film Censorship in Egypt; 2002).
