emirates man
apr/mayz 2015
| CULTURE | FILM
44 FROM RAGS TO RICHES
After working for eight years as a film editor in Cairo, Ahmad Abdalla switched to directing films and has since become the pin-up boy of Egypt’s new wave of independent filmmakers. Emirates Man caught up with him
I don’t make films to convey specific messages nor to convince people of my beliefs,” says
Ahmad Abdalla. “Films are just films.” In many ways Ahmad
Abdalla is the poster boy of Egypt’s new wave of independ- ent cinema. An auteur of nu- anced, low-budget movies, he is known for his organic approach to filmmaking, directing movies that are often hybrids of both fiction and documentary. His 2013 film Rags And Tatters was a near-silent experimental mas- terpiece, while his two previous films were memorable studies of contemporary Egyptian society. All were made with limited funds and by a tight-knit group of friends.
His is a small but concise
body of work that has neverthe- less propelled Abdalla into the spotlight. As such, he now finds himself in an unusual situation. His latest film, Décor, which premiered at the London Film Festival last October and will be released in Dubai on April 2, is his first big budget movie as a director. It is also the first movie he has not written himself, with the film penned by Mohamed Diab, the director of Cairo 678, a picture that focused on the scourge of sexual harassment of women in Egypt. A richly layered psychological character study of a woman obsessed with the old black and white films of Faten Hamama, Décor repre-
sents a new chapter in Abdalla’s directorial career. “For my previous films I
never considered the com- mercial aspect of directing,” he admits. “I was also not consid- ering the classic way of writ- ing scripts. I was not thinking ‘let’s have the climax here’ or ‘let’s have the resolution at this scene’. I was trying to make films in an organic way and for most of my films the script was developed on set. “Décor was different. It was
the first time I had to work on a very tight script. We had to agree on everything before filming and everybody had to
learn what he or she was going to do or say. That was a totally new experience, but I wanted to do it. To test myself. Every film I managed to make previ- ously I made with my friends. We would just keep talking and developing ideas, and even on set, even while we were film- ing, we were still able to come up with ideas. But with this project we couldn’t do that. I was working with a huge crew and there was no room for improvisation. I’m not saying this in a negative way, but it’s a different way of making films and it opened my mind. “With every film I have
Décor
made I have decided to do something different. So when I made Microphone, it was to- tally different to Heliopolis, and Heliopolis was a musical film, vibrant, full of young people. But then I decided to go into more darker areas and do Rags And Tatters, which is almost silent with minimum dialogue. Décor is very different from Rags And Tatters. But this is what I wanted to do as a filmmaker. With every project I try to move away from my safe zone.” It was arguably Rags And
Tatters that got Abdalla the Décor gig. Critically acclaimed in Europe and North America,
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94