TEWFIK HAKEMOn the film front, the Middle East is in turmoil

 Tewfik Hakem (bio), France Culture, 27/12/2021
Translated by Fausto Giudice, Tlaxcala 

From Tel Aviv to Jeddah, via Cairo and Amman, cinema news in this region of the world is full of surprises and reversals. Here we take stock of the situation and attempt to decipher it.

 

In December 2021, the first edition of the Red Sea Film Festival was held in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, less than four years after the lifting of the ban on cinemas in the country - Credits: PATRICK BAZ / RED SEA FILM FESTIVAL / AFP Photos - AFP

Did you know that Jeddah is about to become the Mecca of the Arab film industry... when just three years ago cinema was still banned in Saudi Arabia? Did you notice that the #Metoo wave that has swept across the world takes on a whole new meaning when it washes up on the lands of the “Israeli-Palestinian conflict”? Can you name the equivalent of Marion Cotillard or Jean Dujardin in Cairo, Tel Aviv or Beirut? If you answered no to all these questions, welcome, marhababikum! You are the privileged addressee of this letter from the Orient, focused on cinema.

Palestinian drama wins award in Israel

Our tour begins in Israel, where autumn is the season of the Film Academy Awards. This year, Eran Kolirin's latest feature film, Let It Be Morning, has won almost all the trophies. Adapted from Sayed Kashua's novel of the same name (translated from Hebrew by Grove Atlantic in 2006), the film stars Sami, an accountant living in Jerusalem who returns to the Palestinian village where he grew up to attend his brother's wedding. The stay, which was supposed to last 48 hours, will unfortunately be prolonged for Sami: on the evening of his arrival, a patrol of Israeli soldiers surrounds the village and forbids the inhabitants to move around. Based on this absurd situation, the director creates a tragicomedy in total empathy with the Palestinian protagonists. "The Arabs of Israel are the invisible ones in our country", Eran Kolirin told Le Monde in July 2021 when his film premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in the Un Certain Regard selection. "They live in a democracy, but they don't have the same rights as others, they are stuck in an untenable position and feel guilty about it vis-à-vis the Palestinians in the West Bank," said the Israeli director, who made a name for himself in France in 2007 with The Band's Visit.

 

Sami (Alex Bakri, on the right in the photo) goes to his old village for his brother's wedding. On the evening of his arrival, Israeli soldiers surround the village, forbidding any movement - Credits: © DORI MEDIA / LES FILMS DU POISSON

This is not the first time that the Israeli Film Academy has awarded a film critical of the IDF. Waltz with Bashir, Ari Folman's animated film about the Israeli army's complicity in the 1982 massacres by Lebanese Phalangists in the Palestinian refugee camps of Sabra and Chatila, won Israel the Oscar for best foreign film in 2009 (after winning the equivalent César in France). The films Bethlehem by Yuval Adler in 2014, and Foxtroot by Samuel Maoz in 2017, which were highly criticised by the Israeli authorities at the time, were also rewarded by the Ophir Awards (the Israeli Césars).

But with Eran Kolirin's latest opus, a new level has been reached: it is definitely a contemporary Palestinian drama, with a mostly Palestinian cast, and adapted from a novel by a Palestinian author that could represent Israel at the Oscars this year. This has caused a stir among both Israelis and Palestinians. While some denounce “propaganda” to tarnish the image of the Israeli army, others condemn a “cultural and political appropriation”" of Palestinian suffering.

Global trends and regional specificities: the “Palestinian minority” in Israeli cinema

From Hollywood to Tel Aviv, the issue of inclusion and representation of minorities runs through the global film industry. For its part, Israeli cinema has tended in recent years to give Arabs a little more visibility. But it has a long way to go. According to director Suha Arraf, Arab citizens of Israel receive only about 2% of the Israeli cultural budget, even though they represent 20% of the population.

Another regional specificity: the Palestinians, citizens of Israel, demand that their films be considered as Palestinian. Already in 2010, Scandar Copti (co-director with Yaron Shani of the film Ajami about the Palestinian neighbourhood of Jaffa) caused an uproar when he declared on his arrival in Hollywood that he did not represent Israel: “I cannot represent a country that does not represent me.”

More recently, the actors of Let It Be Morning refused to come to the Cannes 2021 Festival because of the film's classification as Israeli and not Palestinian. In a statement, they took the opportunity to denounce the “decades-long ethnic cleansing” perpetrated by the Israeli army. At the Ophir Awards ceremony on 5 October 2021 in Tel Aviv, Let It Be Morning won seven awards in total, including Best Director and Best Screenplay for Eran Kolirin, Best Actor for Alex Bakri and Best Actress for Juna Suleiman. The film's Palestinian lead actors, who now live in Germany, did not attend the event. Only Ehab Elias Salami was present at the official ceremony to receive the Ophir for best supporting actor. In his acceptance speech, he paraphrased Martin Luther King: “I dream that the Palestinian people will find justice, and that all of us, Arabs and Jews, will live in peace. We all deserve to live in a world without tension and hatred.”

Palestinian cinema to the rescue of the "invisible" of the Arab-Israeli conflict

For its part, the Palestinian Authority decided to propose to the Academy of the Oscars The Stranger, the first feature film by the young and very promising Ameer Fakher Eldin. A wise and eminently political choice. The story of the film takes place in the Golan Heights occupied by Israel after the 1967 war, precisely where the filmmaker's parents come from. Previewed at the last Venice Film Festival, where it won an award, and acclaimed at the Cairo Film Festival (26 November - 4 December), where it won the prize for best Arab film, The Stranger was financed by the Palestinian Authority, Qatar, Syria and Germany - the host country and home of the Syrian director, who was born and trained in Kiev.

Among other qualities, this film allows us to discover a region rarely seen in cinema: the northern Golan Heights. The action takes place in an Israeli village on the border with Syria, immersed in the winter mist. The main character of the film is a doctor trained in Moscow who, unable to have his diplomas recognised to practise his profession, sinks into a deep existential crisis... and into alcohol. Until the day when a wounded young man fleeing the Syrian war asks him for help... Who is this stranger? A soldier of the Bashar al-Assad regime? A fighter of the Islamic State? A mercenary? The Christian doctor in the Golan is faced with a dilemma: should he warn the Israeli soldiers, as his friends in the village have asked him to do, or should he help this young man cross the border at his own risk to bring him help?

To sum up: the Israeli film of the year is a Palestinian drama and the Palestinian Authority film is a Syrian drama. In both productions, Palestinian actors, citizens of Israel, play the main roles. In The Stranger, the role of the doctor is played by the excellent Ashraf Barhom, and that of his father by the iconic Mohammad Bakri. Two great actors born in Galilee. The first in 1979, the second in 1953. If we venture to say, as their Wikipedia entries state, that they are “Israeli Arabs”, we risk incurring the wrath of the (pro-)Palestinians. To be politically correct, one should say “Palestinians from within”. An expression that Israel and pro-Israelis reject, of course.

Melanie Goodfellow, a reporter for Screen, the British film industry magazine, prefers to use a formula that does not upset either side. She now writes “Palestinians with Israeli papers”: “At first it wasn't easy to get the editorial secretaries to accept this convoluted formula. But it was the only way to avoid offending anyone,” she says. And then the Arab citizens of Israel are Palestinians, with a Palestinian culture and memory, at least no one can dispute that.”

Palestinians from within, Arab Israelis or “Palestinians with Israeli papers”? One thing is certain: the authorities of almost all Arab countries refuse to receive them at home. Including countries that have normalized their relations with the Hebrew state. During the last film festival in El Gouna, Egypt (from 14 to 22 October 2021), organised in the seaside resort built by the Egyptian Coptic tycoon Naguib Sawiris, the actor Mohammad Bakri, who was to be honoured for his entire career, decided to boycott the event to denounce this Kafkaesque situation: “I have seen my people stranded in airports around the world, but especially in Arab countries, at the mercy of a customs official,” Mohammad Bakri said in a statement. “I have seen starving children, with their parents, lying on the ground. Sometimes they have to wait for days - not just one or two. I appeal to all authorities in the world, but especially to the Arabs. We have had enough! I am doing this to protest against what happened to me recently, and on behalf of all Palestinians in the world, regardless of their passports.”

Political and taboo subjects at the heart of the new wave of Palestinian cinema

While the Palestinian cause continues to inspire artists in the Arab world, the new generation of filmmakers seems to be increasingly moving away from the classic denunciation cinema to explore unexpected genres and subjects. The proof is in the form of two new films, Amira by Egyptian Mohamed Diab and Huda's Salon by Palestinian Hany Abu-Assad.

Let's start with the film that has set the Arab web ablaze to the point of becoming a political issue. When the film begins, 17-year-old Amira, accompanied by her mother, goes to see her father in the prison where he is held. We soon learn that Amira has never seen him except in the visiting room of the Israeli prison where he is serving a life sentence for “terrorism”. Amira was conceived thanks to the sperm that her father, “the hero”, managed to smuggle out of the prison. About a hundred Palestinian children are said to have been born from the “sperm smuggling” of Palestinian political prisoners. With a scenario worthy of a Bollywood B-movie, Mohamed Diab (who has been known to be more inspired with Clash and The Girls of Bus 678) imagines that the beautiful Amira is not her father's daughter. Wanting to repeat the experiment to have another child, preferably a son, the “imprisoned hero” learns that he has always been sterile. Scandal in the village. Amira's mother has to face a war council. The family's honour and that of the Palestinian cause are at stake. But who is Amira's father? Could it be the brother-in-law, the only single man living in the family home? This possibility is ruled out after a few scenes of unprecedented violence. But then who? What if it was a twisted trick by the Israeli guard who was paid to smuggle out the father's sperm? Could Amira, the daughter of the village's “Palestinian hero”, be that of an anonymous Israeli “enemy”?

 

Following numerous protests, Mohamed Diab's ‘Amira’ has been withdrawn from the competition of the Red Sea Film Festival, which took place in December in Jeddah (Saudi Arabia) - Credits: Pyramide Films

 We won't go any further into the spoiling of this film, which is scheduled for release in France in May 2022. After its screening at the El Gouna and Cairo festivals, Amira was withdrawn from the competition of the Red-Sea International Film Festival in Jeddah, the first film festival organised in Saudi Arabia, following numerous protests. The Jordanian Minister of Culture was forced to announce that he would not present the film to the Academy Awards as planned. But the fever continues to rise on social networks. The Egyptian director Mohamed Diab is designated as the number one culprit, an “ally of the Zionists”. His defenders denounce a “wokism” that does not say its name. Sic! The film's actresses claim to have received death threats, and the children of Palestinian political prisoners denounce an operation to undermine the morale of their parents, some of whom may wait years in prison before being tried.

 In vitro fertilisation is the last resort for Palestinians serving long sentences to become fathers despite their detention. But the reality of this phenomenon is much more complicated than in Mohamed Diab's film. In April 2021, AFP was able to interview Imane Al-Qudra, mother of a child of an “imprisoned hero”. “First we had to convince a fellow prisoner to take out the little vial containing sperm when he was released. Luring prison security by hiding the sample, then deceiving security at the ultra-secure crossing point with Gaza. Finally, once these steps have been completed, hope for a successful in vitro fertilisation,” she explained to AFP.

Underneath its unpretentious little thriller look, Palestinian director Hany Abu-Assad's Huda's Salon is far more impertinent than the film by his Egyptian colleague. A lot happens in Huda's hair salon in Bethlehem, especially in the back room. We will not reveal here the unmentionable methods by which the hairdresser recruits Palestinian spies for the Israeli secret service.

Moreover, the film's scenario does not seek to be revolutionary. Huda, “the traitor”, will not escape her fate and her victims will be saved in extremis by the valiant soldiers of the “Palestinian resistance”. Nevertheless, the real purpose and strength of Huda's Salon lies elsewhere. When Huda is arrested, the Palestinian counter-intelligence chief asks her on what basis she selects her prey. Huda's answer is a slap in the face: “I chose women whose husbands were macho assholes”. All of a sudden, the conventional thriller shifts to the side of an unprecedented denunciation of machismo in Palestinian society. The film suggests that those who fight against Israeli oppression become oppressors themselves towards Palestinian women. The #Metoo wave does not spare Palestinians!

Saudi Arabia, the new Eldorado of cinema

Flying to Jeddah is no longer reserved for pilgrims to Mecca. From now on, you can meet Catherine Deneuve, Cécilia and Richard Attias, Monique and Jack Lang, Yamina Benguigui, Wyclef Jean, Ladj Ly, Justin Bieber, Vincent Cassel and Tina Kunakey... After industrialists and sportsmen, artists are now welcome in the kingdom of Crown Prince and Deputy Prime Minister Mohammed ben Salman, also known by the acronym MBS. The kingdom's strongman is multiplying his gestures to promote his policy of “openness”.

Recently, the Islamic veil for women is no longer compulsory. Saudi Arabia is normalising itself at a dizzying pace, and cinema, long banned, is becoming one of the kingdom's industries. In less than three years, the kingdom has built several multiplexes throughout the country. This year, from 5 to 14 December, the old city of Jeddah (which is undergoing renovation) hosted the first international film festival: the Red Sea International Film Festival.

 

Two Saudi women pose on the red carpet of the Red Sea Film Festival, the first international film festival in Saudi Arabia - Credits: AMMAR ABD RABBO / RED SEA FILM FESTIVAL - AFP

 “Waves of Change” is the slogan of this festival. The entire film industry of the region made the pilgrimage to Jeddah to attend this first edition. It is true that the Saudi kingdom has controlled the bulk of the Middle East film industry for years, notably through satellite TV channels and platforms. What is new is that Saudi Arabia now wants to produce its own films, train local technicians and directors, and open the country to international filming.

So many markets that attract the whole world... or almost. The absence of Hollywood at this event reminds us that the authoritarian MBS is still not in the good graces of the new USAmerican administration. Joe Biden, who had repeatedly criticised human rights abuses in Saudi Arabia during his campaign, certainly did not go so far as to make public the full CIA report that accuses the Saudi crown prince of having “validated” the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018, but relations are strained between the kingdom and its historical ally.

French soft power in the place of honour

The empty space left by Hollywood benefited the Europeans who came in force to Jeddah, and more particularly the French. It was the French-Moroccan businessman Richard Attias, who is close to MBS, who organised this film festival, among other events in the kingdom. And the first opening ceremony of the Red Sea International Film Festival was all about France. Jack Lang, former Minister of Culture and current President of the Arab World Institute in Paris, received a special award. He took the opportunity to praise the Saudi Minister of Culture and ended his speech with a thunderous “We love you” to thunderous applause. “The magnificent” Catherine Deneuve also received a lifetime achievement award.

 

The former French Minister of Culture, Jack Lang, received an honorary award at the opening ceremony, presented by the Saudi producer and president of the festival, Mohamed al Turki - Credits: PATRICK BAZ / RED SEA FILM FESTIVAL-  AFP

About a hundred French professionals made the trip to Jeddah, producers, distributors and directors were asked to be “advisors” or “trainers”. During the evening organised by the French ambassador on the occasion of the Festival, the French diplomats showed their satisfaction. Among the guests, a specialist of the region put a damper on their speeches: “Culture, heritage and luxury are only crumbs compared to the big contracts that Arabia signs with its usual allies, the United States in the lead.” 

The rush of film professionals to Jeddah is partly due to the “Red Sea Souk” (the festival's film market) and its promise to financially support filmmakers from the Arab world and Africa. The cash prizes offered by the Red Sea Fund and the Festival's sponsors exceeded $500,000 (about €443,000). But there were other reasons why the young Algerian director Salah Issaad decided to come to Jeddah to present his first feature film, Soula, which was selected for the official competition. His film tells the story of a night in the life of a young woman named Soula, a distant sister of Fellini's Cabiria. Sent away from her home with her baby born out of wedlock, Soula wanders the streets of Batna looking for a place to sleep. From one car to another, Soula meets all the misfits of the deep country.

Apart from a few Saudi families who preferred to leave the theatre when they heard the crude language of the characters, Soula's trashy night on the Batna-Annaba road was followed with great approval by the audience. “Now that I have the label of Jeddah, and of the country that houses the holy places of Islam, neither Algeria nor any other Arab country will be able to ban my film for moral reasons,” rejoices, perhaps a little too quickly, the young director, who trained at the Audiovisual Institute in Lyon. If this film, cobbled together with great ingenuity, was able to be screened in Jeddah, it is mainly thanks to the Lebanese programmer Antoine Khalifé and the French artistic director Edouard Waintrop, who was the general delegate of the Directors' Fortnight in Cannes from 2011 to 2019.

The slip-up of this first edition was the absence of Edouard Waintrop in Jeddah. On the eve of the festival's opening, the former Libération film critic announced that he had to cancel his visit. Officially because of illness. Unofficially because he could no longer bear the last-minute injunctions of his Saudi employers. So the waves of change can sometimes be stormy.