Nice To Meet You

The "Nice To Meet You" event's flyer

Yesterday was the "Nice To Meet You" event. Me and Karim screened our work. It was not that big event. Only around 25 people arrived so we weren't that nervous :) For me this is the first time to screen any of my work anywhere. It's really weird when u see people watching your films and even weirder when they like any of them. A girl yesterday asked me about my target audience and I simply replied that I make these films for myself which is ridiculously true :) I never really thought about who might watch these films. I guess I should think about this point the next time. Unfortunately I haven't finished the documentary video I'm making about Marseille so I wasn't able to show them anything but unedited rough material which wasn't a good thing at all but that was better than not showing anything at all.

My Work

I have been filming in Marseille during the whole month. I've shot so many videos and I guess it's time now to edit these footage. I'm making a documentary video about the diversity in the city. I haven't decided yet the name or even the sub-theme. Here are some random still shots of some of the videos I shot.

Arabic Documentaries

I went to Alhambra cinema in Marseille to watch two arabic documentaries organized by Les Bancs Publics. The first one was a film by the Syrian filmmaker "Hala Al Abdallah" and called "I am the one who brings flowers to her grave". It a documentary about the filmmaker herself and all the films she wanted to make but couldn't complete.

A screenshot from the film "I'm the one who brings flowers to her grave"

The other film is a Lebanese film made by the German filmmaker "Monika Borgmann". It's called "Massaker" and it's about Sabra and Shatila massacre. It was really very hard to watch as the filmmaker is interviewing six of the mass murderers from Sabra and Shatila. They describe all the crimes they did with a cold blooded attitude while their faces are in black and are not identifiable.

The poster of the film "Massaker"

Arabic Theatre - Clarinet

I missed the second day of the Arabic theatre program because of the light painting workshop but I was able to go in the 3rd day. I watched this very touching play called "Clarinet". 

Director: Akram Al Malki

Actor/Screenwriter: Fadi Al Ghoul

I really fell in love with the actor's performance. Although he acted all the roles in the play he could perform each one so differently in a very easy way. Later I knew also that the play was based on the actor's true life memories about his childhood and the war and "Sabra and Shatila" massacre. It was so sad but beautiful at the same time. I can watch it over and over again.

Light Painting Workshop

I've attended a workshop in ZINC with Fabien. It was about light painting and I really enjoyed it a lot. It was so much fun to have torches and small lights and to try to paint with them. There were also other French people attending the workshop so it was a good opportunity to meet new people and to have fun with them :)

Arabic Theatre - Insihab

There were some arabic plays played in the theatre of La Friche as a part of the Arabic theatre program. The first play I watched called "Insihab" in Arabic or retreating in English. 

Director: Moez Gediri

Screenwriter: Mohamed Al Attar

Cast: Nadia Wally/Skander Zehani

The play was very simple in terms of art direction. There were only the two actors and a bottle of water. I found some difficulty understanding every word although it was in Arabic but it was in Tunisian colloquial and the were speaking so fast but the actors were good in general.

L'Aïd in Marseille

I was planning to go the prayer in the first day of "Eid El Adha" with Karim. We got really lost and finally when we arrived we found that it was over. The prayer was in a very big hall in a place near the stadium.

We were really upset that we missed it as we wanted to pray and to shoot the prayer as well. It's not very often that we spend the feast outside Egypt. I myself thought it was a great idea to make a documentary video about the feast in Marseille and how people spend it. It would have been really interesting for the people here to see an aspect of their city they might not know and also for the people in Egypt. 

I could only shoot with two ladies; one from Algeria and one from Tunisia. They were really friendly and when they knew I was from Egypt they decided to greet the muslims in Egypt for the feast.

The 2 ladies I shot with in a great hall where the prayer took place

Since we missed the prayer we thought we could shoot the sacrifice. We were told to go to a place called "Marche Puces" in a very far place in Marseille. We had to take to metro to go to a place called "Bouganville" and then to have bus number 70. We spent a long time trying to understand this :) and when finally we took the bus we realized that we took it in the opposite direction :) so we had to go all the way back to take the right bus. Everybody was telling us about Mostafa Silmani and we had know what was that until we reached the place and found the big sign with the name to realize that it was only a butcher :)

Mostafa Silmani in marche Puces

It was very cold that day and the district itself was very poor. Everybody was warning us not to walk with the cameras. In Mostafa Silmani there were so many poor people lining up waiting for the free meat. It's a part of the feast to give third of your meat to the poor or even more. We felt it was not that safe to shoot with them because if one of them got angry the rest might hurt us or take the cameras. Also there wasn't any special thing going on but people waiting unlike Egypt for example.

People waiting for the free meat in Mostafa Silmani

After the very long extremely cold day we ended up with nothing and we went back home very disappointed.