| Rising filmmaker Ahmed Abdalla has earned international acclaim but little box-office success By Sherif Awad |
| A cclaimed filmmaker Ahmad Abdalla thought he wanted to be a musician. So much so, in fact, that he actually studied classical music at the Music Institute. Deep down, however, he longed to break into cinema. Abdalla, who made his feature debut with 2009’s Heliopolis, has combined his two passions in his latest film Microphone, garnering a number of international film festival awards in the process. “The idea came while I was walking on the Alexandria Corniche and spotted some very advanced, progressive graffiti with avant-garde design and powerful syllables,” the director recalls. “Because I used to make graffiti with my friends, I asked around about the artist and discovered that she was an 18-year-old young woman named Aya Tarek. So my initial idea was to make a documentary about freedom of expression throughout unconventional practices.” As Abdalla interviewed and filmed Tarek at work on her graffitti, the underground art scene opened up to him. “[Tarek] introduced me to her friends, among them Mascara, a band of five girls that play original rock and metal songs, despite the opposition of their families. And this is when I started to develop the idea as a feature […] And here we are.” After premiering in Toronto and screening in Vancouver in September, the digitally-shot Microphone won the Golden Tanit, the top prize of the Carthage Film Festival in Tunisia, last October. Last month, the film won the Best Arab Film award at the Cairo International Film Festival. Shot documentary style with a hand-held camera, the film offers glimpses of the Alexandria streets, where struggling teenage musicians are looking for a breakthrough that never comes from the national organizations. Microphone’s script was almost completely improvised from an extensive workshop Abdalla held with the artists, most of whom made their first appearance on screen as part of the ensemble cast. Alexandria’s underground art scene is portrayed through the eyes of Khaled Abol-Naga’s character Khaled, who returns to his hometown after seven years in New York to win back his old love Hadeer (Menna Shalaby). His attempts to rekindle the flame fail, and as a defeated Khaled wanders through the streets, he discovers the city’s counterculture artists of rap and metal. His attempts to set up a concert for them in a national theater are hindered by bureaucracy, licenses and even some Islamists. In a parallel plot line, a young couple, played by Youssra El-Lozy and Ahmed Magdy, are trying to make a documentary about the musicians. They later join Khaled in his quest to bring the music to the audience. Abdalla’s path from classical music to movies was paved with hard work. In 1995, he taught himself how to edit digital films using new software just entering the local market. Over the next six years, the self-taught Abdalla racked up experience editing documentaries and shorts. In 2002, Abdalla caught the attention of local filmmakers by becoming the first Egyptian to use the newly released Final Cut software to edit a feature-length film, director Sherif Mandour’s comedy El Ragol El-Abyad El-Motawasit (The Mediterranean Man), starring Ahmad Adam. That film put Abdalla on directors’ short lists for editing. In addition to working with Mandour Amir Ramses (Kashf Hesab [Payback, 2007] and Akher El-Donia 2006 [End of the World, 2006]), Abdalla also edited Ibrahim El-Batout’s critically acclaimed Ain Shams (Eye of the Sun, 2008). In 2009, Abdalla ventured out of the proverbial cutting room and went behind the camera as writer-director of Heliopolis. His freshman film, also starring Abol-Naga and El-Lozy, tells six people’s stories of stagnation in the once-glorious suburb. It was well received at its premiere at the 2009 Abu Dhabi Film Festival, and at the Cairo International Film Festival that same year, it garnered a special mention in the Arab film competition. “Heliopolis was an open message to a group of people with whom I crossed paths with during certain chapters of my life,” Abdalla explains. “Instead of keeping a diary or posting my thoughts on a blog, I decided to write them in the form of a screenplay. But at that time I never thought that it could be transformed into a movie because it was very short, no more than 30 pages. Nevertheless, Sherif Mandour was enthusiastic about the script and decided to produce it with a tight budget, which is something I totally see as the future of filmmaking in Egypt.” Abdalla was first introduced to Abol-Naga while editing Ramses’ film Kashf Hesab. “I asked Ramses for Khaled’s number to show him the script of Heliopolis. I wanted to seed the film with stars alongside newcomers to give it a plausible attraction. That year Khaled had released four films in a row, and I felt that he would be very suitable for the character in Heliopolis.” Abol-Naga was so enthusiastic about the Heliopolis script, he signed on not only as an actor but as executive producer. “Although his role was small and he didn’t receive his usual star fee, Khaled said yes,” Abdalla says, “and even convinced Hend Sabry to do the voiceover of the narrator, also for free.” The director says that Abol-Naga also served as a co-producer for Microphone. Rethinking Labels With unconventional narrative techniques and editing style, Abdalla has been called the next Youssef Chahine or Youssry Nasrallah (who makes a cameo in Microphone). Others see his work as a ‘new wave’ in Egyptian cinema, similar to the new wave that began in the 1970s and 1980s with the films of Mohamed Khan, Dawood Abdel-Sayed and Atef El-Tayeb. While Abdalla sees low-budget films as the future of film-making, the approach carries with a certain stigma. During the 1980s, there were a number of low-budget, straight-to-video films made, often known as mokawlat (commercial) films. To this day, some journalists and film critics use the terms ‘low-budget’ and ‘independent’ interchangeably and assume they are synonymous with poor quality. Abdalla takes issue with both labels. “I think that our critics are mistaken when they call our films [mine and those of El-Batout for instance] independent, because this term was created in the United States to describe movies produced outside of the economic system of major studios like Universal and Warner,” he explains. “Here in Egypt, the situation is quite different because anyone who has enough money can produce a film. In other words, cinema in Egypt has always been independent and private because it was established through the financing provided by individuals.” Abdalla says that independent films cannot simply be categorized by their budget, pointing to director Tamer El-Said’s feature film debut Akher Ayyam El-Medina (Last Days of the City), slated for release in early 2011. The film stars Khalid Abdalla (The Kite Runner, 2007; The Green Zone, 2010) in his first Egyptian film. “Although this movie is ‘independently’ produced, it has been digitally shot in four different countries over five years because El-Said was gathering the necessary funds and contacts to put the film together,” notes Abdalla, who is not related to the the actor. “Akher Ayyam El-Medina’s budget has exceeded LE 5 million, which is not low at all. Call it ‘independent,’ ‘digital,’ or ‘alternative’ — critics must look to the film itself in its final form.” International critics have watched Abdalla’s films at festivals around the world, and judging by the awards, they liked what they saw. Local audiences, however, have had very limited access to ‘independent’ films. Abdalla blames the nation’s film distribution system. “[In 2009], even after premiering in film festivals, we were not at the same level to compete with commercial films in local theaters because both Heliopolis and [El-Batout’s] Ain Shams were only released in five screens each [compared to 30 screenings for a big Egyptian film],” Abdalla says. “Consequently, filmgoers weren’t that exposed to our films, and distributors wouldn’t finance a big advertising campaign for such a low number of cinemas.” It is a matter of economics, he explains. A marketing campaign in print media and television can only break even if a movie is widely released with a large number of copies hitting cinemas at the same time. “Even if we decided to post ads in blogs or on Twitter or Facebook, we still wouldn’t reach a broad range of filmgoers for the time being in Egypt,” Abdalla says. “But I can proudly say that the audience who has seen Heliopolis in 20 festivals is eight times the number of those who have seen it here.” Abdalla expects more local success with his newest release. “[F]or Microphone, I can say its future is brighter because of the enthusiasm of co-producers Mohamed Hefzy and Khaled Abol-Naga who intend to distribute it widely to popular cinemas nationwide and to use its soundtrack as an additional promotional tool.” Even with extensive distribution, there is still a question whether audiences primed for commercial action and comedy will be interested in the realism and serious topics presented in the ‘new wave’ of independent films such as Heliopolis and Microphone. “I think we will know when my film is put to the test among the others,” Abdalla says. “My prime target is to present realistic cinema that I can be proud of at the end of the day. Anyone can watch my film and be entertained, regardless of age or culture.” |
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