Film and Film

The film performed by women in the Arab world commits itself social an politically

Amal Ramsis

Many documentaries and less fiction, most of them with political themes. A militant and committed cinema, direct and funny, that is looking for answers and trying to reach as much as possible the least treated matters.

These are the most general guidelines of the cinema performed by women in the Arab world. But how can understand this phenomenon between the socio-political situation of the past decades?

It should be a very interesting reference to know that the filmmakers women in the Arab world were present as filmmakers, producers, editors... and so on, since the very first moment of the emergence of the film industry. Producers such as Aziza Amir, Fátima Roshdi (Egypt), directors as Salma Baccar (Tunisia), Mai Masri (Palestine), Attiat El Abnoudy y Nabiha Lotfi (Egypt), editors as Nadia Chucri y Rashida Abdel Salam (Egypt), have been relevant to the Arab cinema and have made enormous contributions to the history of the cinema in our countries since its beginnings in the twenties so far.

The challenge we face the Arab filmmakers curiously, is not the exclusion (outside) of the industry, but what kind of film can present and what image of women want to portray. The essential challenge is the difficulty of breaking the rules of commercial cinema, it wants to sell with the women image in general, or with the image of Arab women in particular.

For many years and even today, and despite all the political and social changes in the Arab world, the argument on the situation of Arab women focuses in two main issues: the veil and the sexuality of women.

From this statement we have two trends in the so-called film made by women in the Arab world: the fictional film and documentary film. It probably looks quite strange classify the difference between the fictional film and documentary film as two "trends". But if the production and distribution laws play the most important role in the content of the films, then choose fiction or documentary is choose the market with its laws or do not count on it.

The veil and the sexuality of women, that secret and mysterious life hides the Arab woman and that lies behind the thin curtain of the harem that is a topic and an attractive subject for the market. The market here is not only the domestic market in each country, but is also the Western market which began to interest lately in films made by Arab women who seek this kind of topics or are following this trend.

Caramel

For example, this type of film had much impact in Europe and had a wide distribution and European co-production. The most striking cases are the two films that have had major successes in recent years, Dunia, directed by Jocelyne Saab (2006), and Caramel, directed by Nadine Labaki (2007).

The two films are Lebanese and coproduced with France. Interestingly both of them deal with the issue of the sexuality of women. They also deal with themes that turn into the expected image that Arab women show of themselves. On the other hand, the enormous amount of documentaries made by directors who have a long history, that do not treat this subject but many others more real and most urgent of those who are suffered by Arab women in our societies, none had the spread of the aforementioned titles. Therefore, what we call by chance maybe is no more than a preference of the market of a theme to the detriment of others.

The documentary film

If we speak and want to approach a new cinema at the level of content and language of film, surprise us numerous documentaries made by Arab women, who have succeed to break with the traditional language and vision stereotyped women's "Arab" or "Eastern". The Arab filmmakers, in Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia,... etc., have been assume creatively the possibilities of the "digital" film to open a wide door artistic and thematic, perspective to the extent that it can be considered as a phenomenon all that amount of good-quality documentaries that have appeared in recent years.

Committed and political

With the new generation of women filmmakers, it is remarkable a considerable difference concerning the topics covered. Perhaps the reason is because digital cinema began to be accessible to many filmmakers, and so the production situation has changed significantly, which leaves a very wide margin of freedom to deal with any issue.

Previously the only sources of production were television and State institutions, as it is the case of the Egyptian Film Institute that so far continues to produce documentaries. But even if the documentary is not commercial to do it through those channels of production should have some limitation issues. Almost any documentary produced by the Egyptian Film Institute had a political approach; the topics were always kept within the social or educational framework in the broadest sense.

However, with the youngest filmmakers you notice a change in the cinematographic language and in the kind of topics these women begin to treat.

One of the clearest paradigms in this regard is Arab Lotfi (Egypt) with her films. Documentaries produced by Egyptian TV or film Institute turn around music and social issues in general without approaching any political topic, as El Farah Masri (Egyptian wedding), range (range) and Sabaa Laiali wa sobhya (7 nights and a morning). When she start to make her documentaries independently, the themes change radically and only makes documentaries on political content on the Palestinian cause, as Meraat Gamila (the mirror of Gamila), Ziara Kasira (A short visit), Ala Agsadehem (above their bodies) and Ehki and Asfoura (account birds).

I'm the one who takes the flowers to my grave (of Hala Abdallah, Syria, 2006), Letter to my sister (of Habiba Djahnine, Algeria, 2006), This is the Lebanon (Eliane Raheb, El Lebanon, 2007), Take me to my land (of Mais Darwaza, Jordan, 2007) and 3 cm Less (Azza El Hassan, Palestine, 2008), are some of the titles of numerous documentaries made by women that have dealt with political issues in the past few years.

An intimate and personal cinema

Despite the political characteristic of these documentaries, the starting point is the personal background. In each one of the documentaries mentioned before, we find an intimate, familiar experience of love or friendship that leads the narrative thread of the play. It may be by the independent manner of making documentaries, or because this film is very linked to emerging trends in the documentary film in which filmmaker does not accept the objective or neutral vision towards the subject matter, but just the opposite: the documentary is the point of view of the filmmaker to the world and is a totally subjective point of view.

In these works, the filmmaker is one of the characters in the documentary, the political experience here is a personal experience, she lives it and counts it as Narrator, and she can even go in the documentary as one of the characters, especially if it raises the question through family or friends relations. And it is a phenomenon which clearly reflects the role of these filmmakers as women and as citizens in the decisive change which are living our Arab countries.