Cairo Opera House's Artistic Creativity Center hosted this week a screening of a series of mostly Egyptian short narratives and documentaries produced by students of the Arab School for Film and Television. The screened film are the product of a series of workshops organized by the school in Cairo and Alexandria whose aim is to discover and nurture new talents deprived of the chance to have a proper film education. In theory, the initiative is both thoughtful and very timely. However, as us, viewers, scouted out for the basic elements that constitute a good watch, we were eventually left with an actual few. The event kicked off with a couple of speeches by the organizers congratulating the 20 young filmmakers and lauding the ministry's effort in promoting cultural activities. The participating artists included Egyptian university students, PhD candidates, employees in diverse workforces, housewives and regular film enthusiasts, along with Iraqi poet As'ad Al-Ghariry, the only non-Egyptian contributor. After a brief ''Thank you'' movie dedicated to their mentor Mona Al-Sabban, head of the school, the movies started rolling. The first film of the evening, "I Just Love You, is a tacky 13-minute short with almost no dialogue about two college sweethearts who quarrel and separate in a dramatic opening scene and eventually reunite at the end as they both reach out to pick up the girl's lost notebook, in which her lover has dashed off the words 'I love you.' The notebook, like their relationship, is lost at the beginning of the movie, and after falling into the hands of several marginal characters, lands in a school corridor, presumably where they first met. Thematically overdone, the movie fails to either elicit sympathy for the characters or to fully immerse the viewers into the romance. "Mobi-Adam, on the other hand, tells a tale of a young workaholic too attached to his cellular phone that he ends up dying holding it in his hand. "Woshoosh (Faces) explores the difficulty of choosing which personality to assume when confronted with different situations. Both movies have clear messages, but the weak execution embodied in a series of poorly conceived shots, accompanied by mood-breaking soundtracks hindered that message from reaching the viewer. Arguably the best offering of the afternoon, Karim Nabil's "Al-Daera (The Circle), inspired apparently by a Turkish film entitled "Smile, explores the concept of Karma; that doing a good deed will eventually brings one good fortunes. Nabil also toys with the six degrees of separation idea that entails that all people are somehow connected. The movie starts off in a local coffee shop (ahwa) where a preoccupied man sips his tea while trying to close a deal on the phone. As he summons upon the shoeshiner to polish his shoe, a LE 50 bill falls out his pocket, landing in the poor cleaner's kit. The shoeshiner's morals are automatically tested; first he conceals the note, vowing to keep it, but his conscience ultimately prevents him from hanging on to it and he quickly gives it back. The troubled businessman drives off, buys a box of tissues for a poor girl on the street with the same LE 50 bill, giving it to her without asking for change. His next stop takes him to the Corniche. When the son of the lady who sold him termes finds his lost car keys, he gives him another LE 50 bill. At home, the LE 50 holders turn out to be siblings, the niece and nephew of the shoe cleaner. As the movies unfolds, the viewer realizes that part of the character's agony is the fact that his son is away at a time when he needs his support. The son's early arrival is announced through a phone call as the joyous father drives off to the airport. A stark juxtaposing scene sees both families happily eating supper at their respective homes. The movie wraps up with a fast-forwarded scene of a buzzing traffic light where each lane intertwine with the next; a clear symbol that sometimes the odds of life are stacked in your favor while at others, it simply doesn't. The bigger picture the film paints is that if you choose not to be a good doer, someone else would, and for all you know, that someone could be next door. "Min Gheir Hisab (Free of Charge), "Tawseela (Taxi Ride) and "Binlef fi Dawayer (Going Around in Circles) all revolve around the themes of "The Circle, all shedding light on the decency of Egyptians, and the belief that good deeds are never left unrewarded. Asmaa Salah's three-minute "Al-Reyah (The Wind) makes a slight modification on the same idea, centering on a passersby spotting an ailing, beaten boy on the street but deciding to move on instead of helping him, believing that someone else will come to his rescue. Another movie that delves into the Egyptian social reality is "100 Wara'a (100 Bill). Tackling the issues of drugs and prostitution, the movie focuses on the struggle of one family for survival amid dire economic conditions and the moral dilemmas they constantly confront. Lack of properly conceived ideas aside, the scope of ideas of the films produced by the Arab School for Film and Television was quite narrow, demonstrated in the repetition of themes and narrative arcs, and that's the main reason why this presentation felt somewhat disappointing. It's difficult to foresee where the filmmakers are heading then after, but judging by these productions, they still have a long way to go.
