Hidden Community

At Atheneos Café on the Alexandria Corniche, Gilberto Civardi tells a story he used to hear when he was a young boy about Jova, a beautiful Slovenian lady and  legendary figure in the Slovenian community in Alexandria. Jova was the richest and most elegant Slovenian lady living in Alexandria after she married Oswald James Finney, a wealthy British businessman and one-time co-owner of the Egyptian Gazette after World War II. The scene is documented in The Alexandrians (Alexandrinke), a Slovenian film written and directed by Metod Pevec and which premiered in Cairo during the 4th Panorama of European Film in late November. In another scene Civardi, who was born to a Slovenian mother and an Italian father, leads the film crew to the Church of the Sacred Heart in Alexandria to photograph the family chapel where the Finney family’s remains lie alongside their antique collections. Pevec’s The Alexandrians investigates the relationship between Egyptians and young Slovenian women who immigrated to cosmopolitan Alexandria in the late 19th century and settled down for decades as wet nurses, nannies and housewives. The Mediterranean port city had long been a magnet for artists, intellectuals and businessmen, many of whom permanently relocated and established roots. The cosmopolitan capital by the sea was influenced not just by Europe’s elite, however, but also by the working classes seeking economic opportunities. Winner of the Vesna Award for Best Documentary at the 2011 Festival of Slovenian Film, The Alexandrians traces the origins of the Slovenian community to 1869 and the construction of the Suez Canal, which attracted many wealthy European entrepreneurs to live in Cairo and Alexandria with their families. At the same time, around 5,000 Slovenian women left their poor remote villages and immigrated to Alexandria seeking work in the homes of foreign businessmen. Over the years, these women developed a reputation for being honest and more approachable than British nannies. For a long time Pevec, who studied philosophy and comparative literature in Ljubljana then ventured into directing several feature films and documentaries, had wanted to present the story of Slovenian women in Alexandria but was concerned about the sad memories the project might evoke in their families. “During the shooting of the film, the most difficult thing was to gain the trust of the Slovenian interviewees to get them to reveal their memories in front of the camera,” Pevec says. “It was very poignant for most of them.” The documentary features the talents of cinematographer Miso Cadez, music composer Aldo Kumar and the deep voice of its narrator, Slovenian leading actor Primoz Pirnat. Archival footage from British Pathé and Global Image along with the old images of the Alexandrians shared by their families are strong visual elements that add to the authenticity of the work. It took Pevec and his crew two years to finalize the research for this documentary and track down interviewees in Egypt, Slovenia, Europe and the United States. In Vipava Valley, Slovenia, Pevec succeeded in finding the last three surviving Alexandrians, now ladies in their hundreds. One of them was Doreteja Arcon, who still remembers some of the Arabic words they used to summon her, such as taali (come here) and roohi (go away). The children raised by the Alexandrians, some of them now renowned public figures, also spoke to Pevec about memories of their nannies, who looked after them and spent more time with them than their own parents. Among them is Boutros Boutros-Ghali, former secretary-general of the United Nations, who recalled his Slovenian governess Milena and how she raised him and his siblings in their grandparents’ house. It was not all fond memories, though. The film also featured heart-wrenching stories about mothers separated from their children. In some cases, Slovenian women sometimes married Egyptian Muslims, leading to social tension. Within this context, the film raises questions of the fate of love and relationships between Easterners and Westerners. Pevec also interviewed Alexandrian resident Magda Ibrahim, whose Slovenian mother converted to Islam after marrying an Egyptian. Unbeknownst to Ibrahim, her mother had two children in Slovenia from a previous marriage to whom she continued sending letters and gifts for 14 years. And there were happier stories too. “During my research, I was surprised that there were many successful and even happy marriages between Egyptian Muslim men and Slovenian Catholic women,” says Pevec. “Inter-religious difference was obviously not as fatal as it is may be today. Even Slovenians who had returned from Egypt spoke about Egyptians with only nice and respectful words.” Pevec says he had no problem getting the necessary permits to film in Egypt. The Egyptian Radio and Television Union (ERTU) assisted him with an Egyptian crew, which gave a wider dimension to the film. Because of this successful collaboration, Pevec hopes for future projects between Slovenia and Egypt. “The Slovenian film industry is very small and still depends on governmental funds to produce around five major films a year,” he says. “However, I still dream that the story of The Alexandrians can be presented in a feature film co-produced by Egypt and Slovenia.”