Most people fear public scrutiny; we find comfort in belonging to a group, in knowing that someone has our back covered, in believing that we are not being judged on the basis of our appearance. Clearly, that's just wishful thinking. It's one thing to feel sidelined and bullied in school. It's another when you're a grown woman with a skin disfigurement, battling to raise four kids. "The Colony, a 15-minute short documentary about the plight of lepers in Egypt, is centered on the battle of Bada'a, a garbage collector residing in the impoverished district of Abu Za'bal in the governorate of Qaliubiya. The movie tells a tale of victims of social stigmas, of the fight against a crippling disease amid the most conceivable dire conditions. Bada'a is the lens through which young Egyptian/Austrian filmmaker Abu Bakr Shawky exposes the viewer to the unkind reality of living with leprosy. Leprosy is a disease of the peripheral nerves and the upper respiratory tract, with skin disfigurement being its primary external symptom. Despite the relatively short duration of the film, the grimness of the subject at hand is instantly felt as Shawky fully plunges his viewers into this barren, marginal world, accompanied by a somber soundtrack. Several shots show the village surrounding the colony, which serves as a refuge for former lepers, away from the scrutinizing eyes of the outside world. Garbage mounted everywhere; children pulling donkey carts piled with junk; impoverished homes where carton boxes are used for closets and holes in the ground replace toilets, flies outlining faces whose smiles have long faded, like the hope to ever leave the colony. All this constitutes a series of stark images that paint the picture of the lives of 1,200 Egyptians living with leprosy. Some of the colony's inhabitants, the film indicates, have been residing there for years. Most have no family, and the ones who do have lost contact with them because they're afraid to visit. The exact mechanism by which leprosy is transmitted is not yet fully known. However, the most common belief denotes that transmission could occur via respiratory routes when a healthy person physically contacts a leper for a long period of time. The film then moves to ponder the fate of the children of the colony. While scenes of young kids at a nursery in Abu Za'bal run by Catholic relief organization Caritas produce a glimmer of hope for a few seconds, the viewer is quickly told that most of those children do not make it to secondary school. Striving for survival, kids work in the fields at a young age or work in recycling to contribute to the low income of their families. At the colony, it seems that the struggle for survival is not restricted to those stricken with the disease; it's a social phenomenon that spreads among an entire community. "The Colony is a fearless account of a territory rarely visited in Egypt. Shooting the film, Shawky tells Daily News Egypt, was no easy feat. "I didn t want to be the filmmaker who comes to the [lepers'] homes in order to show them to the world as if they were circus freaks, Shawky said. "The main challenge was filming Bada'a at her work: it is very difficult to hold a camera and conduct an interview while the woman you are interviewing is digging through the ground with extreme difficulty while talking about her children's future. It takes away from your own dignity by not helping her at this moment, said Shawky. "The Colony was screened at the Palm Spring International ShortFest in California last month, which ranks among the three largest short film festivals worldwide. It came in fifth place in the overall top films list as voted by the audience. The movie also won awards in festivals in Las Vegas and Houston, and it won the Best Short Documentary award at the last Cairo National Film Festival. It was also screened in Japan. "Being on the 'festival circuit' creates a good network, said Shawky, who lists the Coen Brothers among his influences. Shawky, a graduate of the High Institute of Cinema, attests his interest in documentaries., but still remains passionate about making narrative films. "The stories I want to tell are not that different from the people of 'The Colony,' the underdogs of society living in places we virtually know nothing about. This does not have to be documentary. "With 'The Colony,' I wanted people who watch the film to know that this is happening now, at this very moment, and it is still going on. This woman is going through the garbage as we speak.
