CAIRO - “When things become worse, they disappear," says a villager to his friend, after an official, driving home from rally in his car, disappears. They live in poverty and humiliation in a small town, and when they start to ask for their rights, they get no response from officials, who just want to hear their applause, not see their tears. The villagers in the Romanian film Meekness, participating in the National Competition of the 34th Cairo International Film Festival, are just as depressed as people in the rest of the world. The film tells the story of Dumitru, the village veterinarian, who leads a normal life, until an absurd accident devastates his entire existence. Starting from this individual drama, the film describes a terrible world that lacks any kind of moral laws, a world totally estranged from humanity, even in its simplest forms. The action takes place in 2005, the time of the great floods in Romania, and everything happens in a gloomy village, drowned in mud, mire and rain, as if we are witnessing the end of the world. The film touched the audience, Egyptians and foreigners alike, as they could identify with these suffering Romanians. "Although the image was gloomy and almost dark, it was expressive too," said Amira Gamal, a digital film director, after attending the screening. The Romanian language was not a barrier, as the film was subtitled in English and Arabic. "The film was just like a nasty dream. Some scenes remind me of what we experience every day here in our country," said Rami Abdullah, a student in the Faculty of Arts ��" Drama and Criticism Department. "I didn't like the dark style and bleak locations the director chose as they put in a bad frame of mind. But that's not meant to be a negative comment," he noted.
