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MFKalfat
Reviews
Et maintenant on va où? (2011)
Where do we go now? But where from?
On March 18, 2011, Nassima Abd al-Halim's son Mahmoud was killed by a sniper's bullet on the street in Libya's Misrata. Less than a month after, the rebels came to her with a captured soldier from Qadhafi's forces, telling her he was slated for execution. They handed her a gun, he turned his back to her, and she killed him.
On April 9, 2014, in Iran, Samereh Alinejad stepped toward her son's killer, who had a noose around his neck. She removed his blindfold and slapped him, forgave and pardoned him. Her action sparked a renewed campaign against capital punishment in Iran.
In January 2014, newspapers reported that Laila Marzouk, mother of Khaled Said, the torture victim beaten to death by Egyptian police in 2010, who has still not seen any verdict for her son's killers, expressed admiration for Abdel Fattah al-Sisi's "humanity."
On the Arab screen, in a temporarily women-only community in an imaginary village fantastically set in the cultural and social reality of Upper Egypt, the women in Araq al-Balah (Date Wine, Radwan al-Kashif, 1999) commit an honor crime by killing one of their own after being shamed by men from an adjacent village: "Men abandoned the village, and the women are impregnated." In Al-Tawq wa al-Iswera (The Collar and the Bracelet, Khairy Bishara, 1986) Hazina informs her son of her granddaughter's adulterous pregnancy, and watches in anticipatory grief as the girl's uncle and cousin fight over who will wash away the shame with blood. Apparently, the Upper Egyptian mother who preserves the legacy of husband and father and incites her children to revenge has become an archetype in Egyptian dramatic tradition. In Al-Massiir (Destiny, Youssef Chahine, 1997), set in an earlier era across the Mediterranean, Manuela the gypsy repeatedly slaps a member of the fanatic group that killed her husband, an Andalusian singer, curses him and then hugs him.
As varied as these women and their experiences are, individually or collectively, in reality or in fiction, in revolutionary times or in earlier or later times, in war or in peace, none bear similarities to the women of Halla' la Wayn? (Where Do We Go Now?, Nadine Labaki, 2011).
Continue reading: http://www.madamasr.com/sections/culture/where-do-we-go-now- where
Microphone (2010)
What musical repression?
Debuting against the backdrop of a revolution in early 2011, the timing of its release certainly played a role in the celebration and sympathy Ahmad Abdalla's film Microphone met with among critics, film festivals, commentators and revolutionaries alike. Many considered the film an artistic prophecy, unmistakably reflecting the restlessness of a young generation denied opportunities for self-expression, development, mobility or even the chance to "live their lives." One scene is presumably a tribute to Khaled Said, the Alexandrian tortured to death in one of a string of significant events that preceded the revolution. The film cleverly utilizes the phenomenon of graffiti in its storyline, as a means for advertising a gig. This art form would later become a prominent cultural feature of the political revolution of a generation...
Continue reading: http://www.madamasr.com/content/what-musical-repression