I'm sitting in the beautiful old Radio movie theatre in Downtown Cairo, watching a black and white movie filmed on a cell phone. On screen, people (all so familiar I feel I crossed them once in the street) are complaining, arguing, not listening to each other while charging forward in endless linguistic loops. The dialogues, as one audience member suggest afterwards, are as frusrating as unresolved mathematical equations. They are also captivating, the way overheard snatches of intense conversation often are, full of urgenty invoked cliches and naked self-assertion and self-righteousness.

We laugh, out of both the pleasure and the discomfort of recognition. Humour, I would venture to say, is rare in contemporary art films, which is another reason that Egyptian artist Hassan Khan's "Blind Ambition" is worth seeking out (although I do wonder how much of this very verbal film is lost to non-Arabic speakers). I saw it last night, as part of the ongoing D-Caf cultural festival. As Khan explained after the screening, it is based on "daily, personal observations" but also elaborated through a painstaking directing/acting process (which as far as I understand toes the line between scripted and improvised) and clever formal choices meant to undercut the exchanges' seeming naturalism. When people aren't speaking, for example, the film is silent. It is as if the characters' voices make them "come into being," says Khan -- the space of single, memorable moments. 

Here's a good write up in Egypt Independent, too. 

Sonali Pahwa and Jessical Winegar, in the latest issue of Middle East Report:

The Arab uprisings have brought major challenges, as well as unprecedented opportunities, to the culture industries. According to a flurry of celebratory news articles from the spring of 2011 onward, protest art is proliferating in the region, from graffiti in Egypt to hip-hop in Morocco to massive photographic displays and political cartoons gone viral in Tunisia. These articles then adopt a predictably ominous tone to express the concern that resurgent Islamist forces represent a danger to arts and culture writ large.

Two fundamental aspects of this emerging cultural politics are frequently overlooked: the support for culture industries in mainstream Islamist circles and the underlying structural transformation of the relationship between arts and the state. The story is not simply one of liberation from authoritarian states, new desires to criticize such states or Islamist threats to freedom of expression. Rather, there are complex shifts in the overlapping cultural and political fields. Changes in the cultural scene are not simply a barometer of broader political and economic change, but part and parcel of it, particularly in countries with strong, centralized ministries of culture, such as Egypt, Syria and Tunisia. In these places, the dominant state ideology poses culture as a path to progress and enlightenment. In this moment of opening, cultural producers, intellectuals and politicians are asking foundational questions about the role of government in the field of culture and vice versa. Egypt, the most populous Arab country and thus a bellwether of sorts, is a case in point.

Read on.

So here are a few recent stories I've forgotten to link to:

An article on curricular and education reform in Egypt and Tunisia (which with the exception of some edits to the civic education books -- the most egregious offenders in terms of flattering references to the countries' dictators -- hasn't really started yet) in Foreign Policy. In Egypt, at least, the challenges to reforming public education are so gargantuan that removing sycophantic references to the Mubarak regime is the least of anyone's worries. 

And a piece in The National on the verdict against Egyptian comic Adel Imam last week for "insulting Islam" in his comedies featuring religious fundamentalists. Of course the verdict (whatever you think of Imam's movies and politics) is terrible, but I try to put it in context. The final verdict is expected early July. 

Imam's portrayals of religious fundamentalists are broad and unflattering - featuring false beards, furrowed brows and stentorian deliveries. The overwhelming suggestion is that Salafists (the ultra-conservative Muslims who have recently won 25 per cent of seats in parliament) are all extremists, hypocrites and manipulators. Then again, while his portrayals may lack nuance and be unsympathetic, it's worth remembering that they were filmed at a time when armed Islamists groups were engaging in terrorism in Upper Egypt and that it's hard to find anything more ridiculous or extreme in them than what some Islamists have actually said and done.

Egyptian law allows anyone to bring charges against "whoever exploits religion in words or writing or any other methods to promote extremist ideologies, with a view of stirring up sedition, disparaging or contempt of any divine religion or its adherents, or prejudicing national unity and social peace." Islamists have taken this already spectacularly broad clause to mean that they have legal protection from ridicule, whereas it should be obvious that making fun of the way certain individuals practice their religion is not the same thing as insulting religion itself.

Imam's position is complicated by the fact that his relationship with the former regime and the Mubarak family was cosy and he often spoke out in defence of government policies. His movies never had any trouble with the censors, and many of those that skewered religious fundamentalism aligned themselves so neatly with government positions as to skirt the edge of propaganda and lead some of his colleagues to accuse him of being a government "spokesman".

Singer Shaimaa Shaalan

I had the chance to see the documentary "The Noise of Cairo" last night. The film is about Egyptian artists and their relationship to the revolution -- their engagement, whether political, personal or professional, and the effect they expect the uprising to have on the creative field. (This is a topic I have written on myself, in "Art in Egypt's Revolutionary Square," at the Middle East Research and Information Project).

 

The film is excellent. It consists of a well-chosen and well-edited series of interviews with a broad cross-section of Egyptian artists. It addresses some fundamental questions (How do you creatively engage with such an extraordinary political moment, if at all? Will the uprising lead to new and different work conditions for artists, to increased freedom of expression? Should artists find new audiences now; try to, as writer Khaled El Khamissi says, build a bridge between culture and society?) without belaboring the points or putting words into the artists' mouths.

There are some poignant and powerful moments, as when middle-aged artist Khaled Hafez talks about teaching his students to avoid and transcend censorship because his generation had been "programmed" not to engage or believe in direct confrontation and says "I discovered what it was to be a citizen at 48." Or Hany Rashed's account of being harassed by state security for his great work featuring policemen, and how one of the first thing he did was photograph cops in the street and return to this theme after the revolution.  

But the documentary, although it's sub-titled "art and revolution," take the artists' own matter-of-fact attitude to their political engagement -- current events are just something they inevitably react to (and some say they purposely want to avoid commenting on the revolution). I liked the film for how it shows the breadth and variety of artistic production that was already taking place under Mubarak and that has increased in volume and confidence since. My favourite discovery: dancer Ezzat Ismail, whose performance "Waiting?" in the YouTube video below, is meant to capture the elation and anxiety that followed Mubarak's ouster. He filmed it at 2am one night, with the curfew still in place and an army checkpoint stationed nearby.