While some Egyptian fans feel a bit frustrated that the Egyptian movie ‘After the Battle' has returned home empty-handed from the official Cannes competition, others see that getting as far as Cannes is quite an achievement in itself. After the Battle,' by Egyptian director Yousry Nasrallah, is a fictional movie that tackles last year's revolution. It has drawn much attention from the critics, maybe because its theme is so topical. ‘The Egyptian movie was not the only one that dealt with Arab Spring in the different categories at Cannes. One of them was ‘The Oath of Tobruk', which was in the unofficial competition in Cannes. Bernard-Henri Levy, a prominent French left-wing intellectual, was its co-director, narrator and central subject. At the end of the day, the 65th Cannes Film Festival continued to express its fondness for ‘artistic' cinema, rather than films with an economic or political theme. The festival crowned Love, by Austria's Michael Haneke, the heartrending tale of a man and his dying wife, with its Palme d'Or prize, as Europe swept the awards at the world cinema's top showcase. Amongst the works that were overlooked there were gangster flicks by Australia's Andrew Dominik and John Hillcoat, tales of the American South by Jeff Nichols and Lee Daniels, and a critique of capitalism from Canada's David Cronenberg. A group of US movies were also totally neglected by the Festival Jury, who opted almost exclusively for European cinema, the exception being the Best Director Prize, which went to Mexican Carlos Reygadas for Post Tenebras Lux. But we were happy to see more Egyptian and Arab movies in the different categories of this illustrious competition this year. And Egyptian filmmakers should knuckle down to creating more quality movies, worthy of snatching a prize or two at next year's festival.
