Arab Cinema Cycle
Curator: Mohamed Siam
26 Jun - 22:00 | 27 Jun - 22:00 | 28 Jun - 22:00 | 3 Jul - 22:00 | 4 Jul - 22:00 | 5 Jul - 22:00 | 2012
Anfiteatro ao Ar Livre
Background
The Arab culture and especially the North Africa region has met many crucial turns during the last 40 years, yet, for the last 2 decades the general atmosphere and surrounding have been stiff / and still that was hard to differentiate it from any other culture decline, due to the spread-out dictatorship regimes and the lost concept of true leadership, while the tone of repression and injustice kept rising slowly. Tunisia had the first spark and tip of the arrow that was followed by several Arab revolutions encouraged by the inspiring quick turnover of Tunisian regime. The cinematic scene was often commercial and rarely competitive but when it was the case, it was strong even compared to Europe & world cinema.
In Transition
As everything is in constant change, slow or rapid, the current situation is as vibrant and dynamic as any of the Arab spring uprising. While this special region of North Africa is presently being reshaped and each of the 5 countries is changing simultaneously in variation to have an animated vibrant region in transition. The reflection on these nations is transformation and so will be the concept of this cycle/ program of a selection of films: feature narratives, documentaries and shorts. Each film represents a leap into another phase or a preparation into a transformation, going through time and interactions, we notice how change and reforming the places, the facts and the regimes, can be rapid and sudden or unfelt going under a grey zone for a long time.
MOHAMED SIAM (Egypt, 1981) is as an independent documentary and fiction filmmaker. Mr. Siam has also worked on feature film projects, as a 1st Assistant Director including the feature documentary “The City of the Dead”, a Portuguese/Spanish co-production funded by Canal Plus that premiered at IDFA 2009 (International Documentary Film Festival of Amestradam) and won Best Film at Documenta, Madrid, in 2010. More recently, he acted as a 1st AD on fellow Egyptian filmmaker Tamer Said’s feature film “In the Last Days of the City”, winner of Global Film Initiative and Cinereach grants among other funds. Mohamed Siam is the founder & artistic director of the Artkhana Film Center in Alexandria, an established art space that caters to filmmakers’ technical and training needs.