Hani Mustafa celebrates the Egyptian revolution in Abu Dhabi No doubt Egypt has made the largest contribution to cinema in the Middle East since the beginning, when for three decades starting in the 1940s, a golden age occurred in conjunction with literature. In the last years of the 20th century, the connection between literature and film began to falter significantly, partly as a result of the deterioration of the film industry as a whole. The huge contribution of literature to cinema in this context is closely tied up with the 1988 Nobel laureate Naguib Mahfouz (1911-2006), who not only provided novels that were made into films but also wrote unrelated screenplays. This year the Abu Dhabi Film Festival celebrates Mahfouz, who is the subject of a book published on the occasion of his 100th anniversary, Naguib Mahfouz: Film Figure. It includes essays by the Egyptian critic Samir Farid, who addresses Mahfouz as a film writer, the Lebanese critic Ibrahim El-'Ariss, on the line dividing Mahfouz the author and Mahfouz the screenwriter, the Mexican screenwriter Paz Alicia Garcia Diego, discussing his experience writing a film named Principio y fin, based on Mahfouz's novel A Beginning and An End, the Egyptian critic Kamal Ramzi on the film stars who performed as characters from Mahfouz's novels: among others, Sanaa Gamil, Farid Shawqi, Shukri Sarhan, Soad Hosni. The book ends with a piece by the journalist Wael Abdel-Fattah on the significance of metaphor in filmmaker Salah Abu-Seif's Shabab Imra'ah (A Woman's Youth), compared to the novel. The festival also presented a programme of films written by Mahfouz: Tawfik Saleh's Darb Al-Mahabil (Idiots' Alley), Abu-Seif's Bidaya wa Nihaya (A Beginning and An End) and Bein Al-Sama awl-Ard (Between Heaven and Earth), Kamal El-Sheikh's Al-Liss awl-Kilab (The Thief and the Dogs), Hassan El-Imam's Bein Al-Qasren (), and Ali Badrakhan's Al-Gou' (Hunger), as well as two Mexican films based on Mahfouz novels: Arturo Risptein's Principio y fin (1993) and Jorge Fons's Midaq Alley (1995). *** This year Abu Dhabi follows in the footsteps of international festivals - Cannes and Venice, for example - celebrating the Arab Spring, particularly the Egyptian Revolution. A seminar was held on the topic where the speakers included the two Egyptian actors Khaled Abul-Naga and Amr Waked, the Syrian director Hala Al-Abdalla, the Syrian director and critic Nabil Al-Malih and the Tunisian producer Habib Attiya. Two Egyptian films dealing with the 25 January Revolution were also screened. The first, Tahrir 2011: The Good, the Vicious and the Political, was in the documentary competition programme; its producer, Mohammad Hefzi, received the best production prize. The film was screened at the Venice Film Festival; and it also received the UNESCO prize CICT-IFTC. It is made up of three half-hour documentaries by Tamir Ezzat, Ayten Amin and Amr Salama. Drawing on the title of Sergio Leone's well-known spaghetti western, the filmmakers presented the revolution as having three virtual main characters, each presented by one film: the people (Tamer Ezzat), the police (Ayten Amin) and the president (Amr Salama). Relying on the conventional technique of mixing eyewitness interviews with television footage, Ezzat presents a watertight structure for the real-life, human details he has collected, whether at the outbreak of the revolution, on Angry Friday or during the sit-in. The second part of Tahrir 2011 seemed by far the weakest, possibly as a result of the difficulty involved in interviewing policemen who were in the throes of a psychological crisis following the revolution. Protests had broken out against them as the most visible arm of a repressive regime; they alone are responsible for the breakdown of security during and directly after the events. No doubt Amin made a huge effort to find policemen willing to talk on camera. Yet the result, rather than a balanced documentary, is a policeman's viewpoint on events. The occasional intervention from human rights activists would have helped a lot. This was particularly evident in when it came to the burning down of police stations, which certainly required several different viewpoints, not just one, especially since it overlaps with questions about the martyrs killed on Angry Friday. Surprisingly, Amin shows the burned down police station of Sayeda Zeinab in a scene that ends with the Egyptian flag buried in sand - giving unexpected credence to the official narrative in which the revolutionaries were destructive traitors - a standpoint opposed to the revolution which finds added support in talk of the notorious and now officially disbanded State Security protecting Egypt from terrorism during the 1990s. The American documentary filmmaker Michael Moore may be said to have invented a form of audiovisual satirical chronicling that has proven very effective; and it is this, perhaps, that was on Salama's mind when he made his contribution to Tahrir 2011. The premise of Salama's film is a simple question: "How to create a dictator in 10 points". He employs a mixture of graphics and footage from Mubarak's propaganda to show this, together with the views of some familiar faces from the media: Alaa El Aswany, Bilal Fadl, Mustafa El Fiqi, Hossam Badrawy. The comedy is strong from the very beginning, when Salama deals with the hair dye used by Mubarak as a metaphor for his style of governance. The second film on the revolution is the narrative feature 18 Days, which was screened in May at Cannes at a time when the revolution was still fresh. The film met with strong criticism for its quality, which the relevant parties saw as having a negative effect on the revolution. Of the 10 directors who contributed a mini-feature each, what is more, two - Sherif Arafa and Marwan Hamid - had worked on promotional material for Mubarak and the NDP (the others are Youssri Nassralla, Kamla Abu-Zikri, Maryam Abu-Ouf, Sherif El-Bendary, Mohammad Ali, Khaled Marie, Ahmad Abdalla, Ahmad Alaa). Yet it was screened in numerous festivals including the present one, in the Showcase programme. The opening mini-feature, Sherif Arafa's Ihtibas (Blockage), is closer to a graduation project or a college theatre piece. It is set in a mental asylum that stands in for Egypt - a mawkish attempt at symbolism. Nor is 19/19, Hamid's piece, any less trite: a political activist (Amr Waked) is being interrogated at State security by an officer (Iyad Nassar) and a deputy (Bassem Samra); there is plenty of abuse but no aesthetic value. Nine of the 10 mini-features here are deeply disappointing, in-your-face regurgitations of cliches done and redone to distraction since the 1960s. The only exception is Sherif El-Bendary's contribution, starring Ahmad Fouad Selim. It is the story of a grandfather and a grandson on their way back from hospital, where they went for the child's stomach ache. The child wants to have his picture taken in front of one of the tanks, which the old man refuses due to the curfew. Failing to persuade the road block of letting him through, the grandfather spends the night in the car, where the child sleeps. In the morning he has his picture taken with the tank before going home. This film is indeed the model by which all the others should have been guided: aesthetically the short film is a single detail with a striking ending. Tahrir 2011: The Good, the Vicious and the Political Abu Dhabi Film Festival Awards Narrative Feature Competition The Narrative Feature Competition presented a selection of 16 films from 11 countries. The jury awarded the following Black Pearl Awards: Best Narrative Film ($100,000) Chicken With Plums (Poulet Aux Prunes), directed by Marjane Satrapi (France/Germany/Belgium) Special Jury Award ($50,000) A Separation (Jodaeiye Nader az Simin), directed by Asghar Farhadi (Iran) Best Director from the Arab World ($50,000) Isma�l Ferroukhi for Free Men (Les Hommes Libres) (France/Morocco) Best Producer from the Arab World ($25,000) Ziad Hamzeh and Ridha Behi, for Always Brando (Dima Brando), directed by Ridha Behi (Tunisia) Best Actor ($20,000) Woody Harrelson in Rampart, directed by Oren Moverman (USA) Best Actress ($20,000) Jayashree Basavaraj in Lucky, directed by Avie Luthra (South Africa) New Horizons Competition 12 films from 11 countries competed in the New Horizons Competition. The jury awarded the following Black Pearl Awards: Best Film ($100,000) Stories Only Exist When Remembered (Histórias Que SóExistem Quando Lembradas), directed by Julia Murat (Brazil/Argentina/France) Special Jury Award ($50,000) Alms for a Blind Horse (Anhey Ghohrey Sa Daan), directed by Gurvinder Singh (India) Best Director from the Arab World ($50,000) Amr Salama for Asma'a (Egypt) Best Producer from the Arab World ($25,000) Sooney Kadouh for This Narrow Place, directed by Sooney Kadouh (Lebanon/USA) Best Actor ($20,000) Maged El Kedwani in Asma'a, directed by Amr Salama (Egypt) Best Actress ($20,000), shared by Memona Mohamed in Tears of Sand (Lagrimas de Arena), directed by Pedro Pérez Rosado (Spain) And Sonia Guedes in Stories Only Exist When Remembered (Histórias Que SóExistem Quando Lembradas), directed by Julia Murat (Brazil/Argentina/France) Documentary Feature Competition The Documentary Feature Competition comprised 12 films from 11 countries. The jury awarded the following Black Pearl Awards: Best Documentary ($100,000) Position Among the Stars (Stand Ven De Sterren), directed by Leonard Retel Helmrich (Netherlands) Special Jury Award ($50,000) The Tiniest Place (El Lugar Màs Pequeño), directed by Tatiana Huezo (Mexico) Best New Director ($50,000) Gemma Atwal for Marathon Boy (India/United Kingdom/USA) Best Director from the Arab World ($50,000) Safinez Bousbia for El Gusto (France/Algeria/Ireland/United Arab Emirates) Best Producer from the Arab World ($25,000) Mohamed Hefzy for Tahrir 2011: The Good, the Bad & the Politician (Al Tahrir 2011: Al Tayib wa al Shariss wa al Siyassi) directed by Ayten Amin, Tamer Ezzat and Amr Salama (Egypt)
