A number of celebrities attended the opening of Egyptian filmmaker Ahmad Abdalla's first photography exhibition last Wednesday. Launched under the title "Deceiving Time", the exhibition is being held in TINTERA Gallery in Zamalek and is open to the public from 26 January to 16 February. Renowned stars like Basma, Sayed Ragab, Nahed El-Sebai, Karim Kassem, Amr Abed, Sedky Sakhr, Hadil Hassan, Yara Goubran, Hassan Al-Geretly, and Layla Araby have attended the event.
The exhibition features 19 photos taken by Abdalla between 2010 and 2021. The 19 large colour archival pigment prints are made up of superimpositions of disregarded photographs where he investigates how we recollect and remember.
Visually, the work references both long exposure photography and chronophotography. His photographs are an exploration of everything that lays outside of the frame arbitrarily chosen to encapsulate a memory. Abdalla is also currently working on his new feature film '19B' (working title). Written and directed by the artist himself, the film is produced by Mohamed Hefzy (Film Clinic), marking a new collaboration with Abdalla after previous films like 'Microphone' and 'Rags and Tatters.' Born in Egypt, Abdalla is an award-winning filmmaker and photographer who has become an integral part of the new wave of independent cinema in the Arab world. He is best known for his feature films 'Heliopolis' (2009), 'Microphone' (2010), 'Rags & Tatters' (2013), 'Decor' (2015), and 'EXT/Night' (2018). His many awards include Best Director in regional and local festivals such as the Dubai Film Festival, Cannes Film Festival, the Golden Antigone Prize at the Cinemed Film Festival of Montpellier, the Golden Tanit Prize in Journées Cinématographiques de Carthage, and the Golden Tulip in Istanbul International Film Festival. His films have participated in other festivals such as the Toronto International Film Festival, the London BFI, International Film Festival Singapore, and the São Paulo International Film Festival. TITERA is a photographic consultancy with a gallery space in Cairo and an office in London co-founded by Zein Khalifa and Heba Farid in 2019. Aiming to raise the profile of both contemporary and historical photography in and of Egypt through a programme of curated exhibitions, events, and research projects, the gallery represents artists from Egypt and elsewhere, emerging and established, with Egypt being the common inspiration in their work.
