Film screening and discussion: “Dawn" by Nadine Salib, “Catharsis" by Alia Ayman and “Egyptian Jeanne d’Arc” by Iman Kamel
Werkstatt der Kulturen, Wissmannstraße 32, 12049 Berlin
In cooperation with Mayadin Al-Tahrir e.V. and the Werkstatt der Kulturen
Film: Dawn
by Nadine Salib
Film Essay, 2011, Egypt, 7 min, Arabic/Engl. st.
A girl knitting a collage of images taken from her video diaries while contemplating upon mixed memories in a poetical context.
Film: Catharsis
by Alia Ayman
Film Essay, 2013, Egypt, 7 min, Arabic/English st.
A 22 year old woman makes a film for her mother, experimenting with self-representation, translation and their limits.
Film: Egyptian Jeanne d'Arc
by Iman Kamel
Documentary, 2016, Egypt, 85 min, Arabic/English
Filmmaker Iman Kamel journeys to the Western Desert where she discovers a diary written by a Bedouin girl named Jehanne. Inspired by the latter’s struggle to break free from patriarchal oppression and become a dancer, the filmmaker attempts to trace the whereabouts of Jehanne by reaching out to fellow Egyptian artists, all women, who share with her their own stories of aspiration and resistance over the last five years. This is a hybrid film that melts documentary with mythic story elements, poetic narration and dance to convey the true stories of resistance by Egyptian women since the outbreak of the revolution in 2011.
Guest:
Iman Kamel is an Egyptian filmmaker who is always on the move and has travelled extensively in China and in countries in southern Africa. She holds a Global Master of Arts degree from The Fletcher School at Tufts University in Boston, USA, and followed interdisciplinary studies in art, dance and film at Berlin University of Arts. Since 1995, Kamel has directed five short films including ‘Hologram’ (2004) and a feature documentary “Nomad's Home” (2010).
Discussant:
Pascale Ghazaleh is a EUME Fellow of the Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung at Freie Universität Berlin and an Associate Professor of History at the American University in Cairo. She specializes in Ottoman history and 19th-century Egypt. She received her PhD in History from the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS), Paris. She has published research on the social organization of craft guilds in late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Egypt, and on the material culture and social networks of merchants in Cairo during the same period. During her time as a EUME Fellow, she will be working on a project about ownership practices and their relation to the constitution of national resources in late nineteenth-century Egypt.