Amal Fawzi tells Nesmahar Sayed about one of Egypt's most contentious social issues "Purity, honour, virtue, hymen: many synonyms for virginity. I am too shy to utter any of them to the audience but I have to force myself to ask questions". These are the words with which the narrator opens Private File, a documentary about female virginity that took director Saad Hendawy and writer-researcher Amal Fawzi far more time and effort than they thought it would. "Seven years ago I was shocked when Hendawi suggested we should make a film about virginity," Fawzi says. But eventually, as they discussed the relevance of the topic and the many aspects of life into which it entered, Fawzi was convinced. The film was screened at the Creativity Centre, Opera House grounds, and then again at the Press Syndicate -- where I saw it, and where almost everyone was impressed with the serious and effective way in which it brought up issues no one can afford to ignore. Fawzi says the issue is not virginity per se. "We are neither for nor against the idea that so much moral value should be attached to a girl staying a virgin until she gets married. What we are more interested in is how the concept of honour plays out in society." As a journalist at the weekly magazine Sabah El-Kheir, Fawzi often wrote about the concept of honour, which for men tends to reduce to fulfilling family and financial obligations but for a never-married woman reduces to a physiognomical trait. "There should be no difference between a boy and a girl -- the idea is common enough. But while researching we realised just how huge the imbalance is in society." The film consists of people's answers to questions asked by Fawzi, mostly off screen. She talks to sociologists, religious scholars and human rights activists as well as a cross section of society. And the most interesting recurrent motif is the contradiction between what people say they believe and how they say they act. "If she was not a virgin and I really loved her, the no -- I would not marry her," one young man says confidently. The idea of the film, according to Fawzi, is to show the average Egyptian girl what the consequences of premarital sex could be. She says she made a point of excluding the opinions of those who believe in premarital sex as they do not reflect the vast majority -- and may have been taken as a sign that the film is promoting premarital sex. Even with such a conservative agenda, however, the film was not easy to make. Funding was not forthcoming until IREX, a non-profit arm of the US State Department, agreed to help. Hendawi had 50 hours of footage, and with the help of "our main hero," as Fawzi calls the editor, Rabab Abdellatif, this had to be whittled down to 61 minutes. The greatest difficulty, however, was finding a real-life example who would talk about her experience on camera. The girl does not give her name, her voice is hidden, and she discusses how when she lost her virginity -- driven by love -- she refused to have reconstructive surgery (an extremely common practise sanctioned by the religious establishment) as she felt she did not want to deceive the person she would spend the rest of her life with. "I am sickened by what is happening in society," one audience member declared after she watched the documentary. "A father would rather kill his daughter after she is raped than risk eastern honour, or a man saying -- with a perfectly straight face -- that girls are shame." For Rasha Abdulla, journalism professor at the American University in Cairo, "It is a very good thing that someone took the courageous step of delving into such a sensitive topic." Abdulla thought the film managed to show how society's double standards, and criticised the notion of honour killing: "I don't understand how honour and killing can come in the same sentence. Hoda Zakaria, the sociologist who worked as a consultant for the project, says she went on board because she believes that such issues have to be dealt with methodically. "Harassment and rape are called sexual acts," she says. "But they are not, they are pure violence."
