Judgement Day
▻https://africasacountry.com/2019/06/judgement-day
Around this time last year, Egyptian film Yomeddine (Judgement Day) was screened at Cannes Film Festival to great
Judgement Day
▻https://africasacountry.com/2019/06/judgement-day
Around this time last year, Egyptian film Yomeddine (Judgement Day) was screened at Cannes Film Festival to great
Defying the gaze of others in Abu Bakr Shawky’s Yomeddine |
Adham Youssef
June 1, 2018
MadaMasr
▻https://www.madamasr.com/en/2018/06/01/feature/culture/defying-the-gaze-of-others-in-abu-bakr-shawkys-yomeddine
After finishing my interview with director Abu Bakr Shawky and producer Dina Emam at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, I move to my next scheduled meeting — a group discussion with a Kenyan director about her film, which is screening in the Un Certain Regard competition. Shawky is conducting an interview with a foreign journalist nearby, and I can’t help but overhear their conversation. The reporter asks him about the “political and religious messages” behind his debut feature and Palme d’Or contender, Yomeddine (2018).
Later, when I meet with Shawky again, I ask him to comment on that question. “Wherever there is a good story I will go,” he says. “There is an expectation from Middle Eastern films that they have to be about politics and religion, but I don’t want to do that anymore. Not because they are irrelevant, but I watch films from the United States, Europe and Asia that are not political, and I like them. So why can’t a Middle Eastern film not be political in the traditional sense and still be considered enjoyable and significant?”
There were three other Arabic-language films in Cannes this year; Nadine Labaki’s Cafarnaüm (2018), a Lebanese drama about poor children and migrants in the informal housing areas of Beirut; Gaya Jiji’s My Favourite Fabric (2018), a film that tackles female sexuality and the Syrian revolution (guaranteed to be a hit with Western audiences); and Sofia, Meryem BenMbarek’s story about premarital pregnancy in Morocco. Yomeddine stood out among them as a different narrative that is placed within a specific context, yet is universally appealing and relatable nonetheless.
Israel lobby fails to block screening of Palestinian film at Cannes | The Electronic Intifada
►https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/israel-lobby-fails-block-screening-palestinian-film-cannes
A Palestinian work was screened at the Cannes Film Festival’s Marché du Film as planned on Monday, despite an intense campaign by Israel lobby groups to have it canceled.
Nasri Hajjaj’s Munich: A Palestinian Story was one of four films excerpts of which were screened to industry professionals in collaboration with the Dubai International Film Festival.
Hajjaj told The Electronic Intifada from Cannes that the screening of a 14-minute segment passed without incident and he received a positive response from those present.
As The Electronic Intifada reported last week, France’s main pro-Israel lobby group CRIF had been exerting intense pressure on authorities to ban the film, even enlisting the support of the mayor of Cannes.
CRIF claimed that the film engages in “historical revisionism” about the 1972 raid on the Munich Olympics by the Palestinian group Black September, in which 11 Israeli athletes, a German police officer and five hostage takers died.
But CRIF could not know this since the unfinished documentary had never been publicly screened.
Hajjaj said that CRIF and other critics have made a number of false claims about his film, which they have not seen.
CRIF boss Roger Cukierman even claimed on Twitter that he had been personally assured by Cannes Film Festival president Pierre Lescure that Hajjaj’s film would not be shown.
En français :
Censure anti-palestinienne au festival de Cannes : le CRIF est tombé sur un os !
Ali Abunimah, The Electronic Intifada, le 17 mai 2016
►http://www.info-palestine.net/spip.php?article16043
.:Middle East Online::Palme d’Or from Tunisia’s perspective : To applaud or not to applaud Kechiche :.
▻http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=59028
Culture minister in Islamist-led government congratulates Kechiche for winning Cannes Film Festival’s top prize, without referring to movie details.
Petites contorsions politiques en Tunisie avec la Palme d’or de Kechiche.
Egalement ici : ▻http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/culture/2013/05/freedom-expression-tunisia-revolution.html
Palestinian Film ’Condom Lead’ Nominated for Cannes Award
▻http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2013/04/gaza-palestinian-short-film-nominated-cannes.html
This is the story of Condom Lead, a film parody of the first war on the Gaza Strip in 2008-29, known as Operation Cast Lead. It has been entered into the short-film competition at the 66th annual Cannes Film Festival. This movie is the first from the Gaza Strip to make it to the international competition.