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selenakA fantastic documentary that follows four Egyptian women through two years after the Tahir Square Uprising. The director is Austrian, Alexandra Schneider, and the film, after making the international festival circuits last year, has just hit the cinemas in Germany. I really hope it'll be shown everywhere.
The four women in question are:
- Sharbat Abdullah, an activist, who was at Tahrir Square from the start, taking her sons along. (They promptly got beaten at school for disagreeing, based on their own experiences, when the teacher claimed the military were protectors of the revolution.) Sharbat used to work for the military and thus already at the start of the film had no illusions to lose about them, but is equally sceptical and worried about the Muslim Brotherhood, yet fiercely believing that this time, people can really achieve change, that the revolution will happen if you don't give up working for it. And she's in a marriage heading towards divorce, still a social stigma in Egypt, but definitely a goal for Sharbat.
- Fatema Abouzeid, also an activist, but for the Muslim Brotherhood (she even was a co founder of the party), with directly contrasting political views; Fatema between being a part of the Mursi for president campaign, her family (like Sharbat, she has children and is married) and getting her degree at the university hardly sleeps. There's a scene after she gets her degree (thanking her husband for giving her permission to study at the start of her presentation) when she sees the photos of women from earlier classes, decades ago, and notices none of them wears headscarfs or veils. "Unbelievable," Fatema says, a dedicated Islamist. After Mursi's election victory, she's not allowed to talk to Alexandra Schneider again, and thus drops out of the picture halfway in. (Given that Mursi and the Muslim Brotherhood not only fell from power but are classified as terrorists by the current regime, chances aren't good that she and her family are still alive and in one piece.)
- Amani Eltunsi, a publisher and radio broadcaster, campaigning for women's rights both with books and on the radio (she founded and produced the first Egyptian radio programm for women), tackling such taboo subjects as divorce or circumcision. At the start of the movie, she's wildly successful, her broadcast is listened to, her books sell, though some of the few men who show up at her book presentations complain she should just accept that there can ruly one at home, which has to be the man.
- May Gah Allah, who at the start of the movie just has given up her secure job at an international bank because she is determined to start a development project for her people, the Nubians, who, being black, are an ethnic minority within Egypt and were resettled twice within the 20th century due to the building of the big reservoir dams, living in chronic poverty as the result.
All of these women were galvanized by the uprising and determined to make a change, and watching from a 2015 perspective, you know of course coming in there's heartbreak ahead, more about that in a minute. They're all interesting and different from each other, starting with the exterior. Amani and May are unmarried and wearing Western style clothing throughout, Sharbat and Fatema are married with children and wear headscarfs, though Sharbat at home sometimes doesn't; Fatema's family appears to be wealthy, but she campaigns for Mursi in the poorest quarters because that's where the Muslim brotherhood finds its clientele. Sharbat seems to be the Egyptian equivalent of lower middle class but through the movie becomes increasingly an outsider in her own quarter because she won't stop with her activism as things go back to ever greater restrictions, and it hurts to see the woman who fearlessly dances across Tahrir Square and yells at the military at the start being called a Western spy and even hit by boys in her neighbourhood two thirds in. (She doesn't give up, though.) Amani breaks your heart twice over; once in a scene where she talks with two young girls about circumcision; both girls have been circumsised around age 9 (with, btw, their mothers, not fathers, as the ones tho insisted it had to be done), and one mentions her little sisters are next, though they're trying to keep their mothers from doing it; Amani after telling the girls that there's nothing in the Qu'ran justifying female circumcision, that it's a North African tradition with no legal basis, later in her car tells Alexandra Schneider it was done to her when she was seven, held by her mother and grandmother while the family doctor cut inside her without even bothering to explain why. The other heartbreak comes when the house where Amani's publishing office (and all her books) are has been burned down, Facebook has banished her "for blasphemy", her radio website has been hacked and destroyed. It makes you want to reach through the screen in order to help her. (Amani then decides to move to Dubai and continue her internet radio and her publishing from there. She's now a regular audience over five million listeners in the Arab world.)
May, while having to put up with a lot of wonder and condescension in her home region near Assuan - one of the officials she needs a licence from asks here whether the money for her organization is American or otherwise foreign, she says no, it's all Egyptian, with Mr. Soandso (local honcho) providing much of the starting capital, the official comments "your father must be a very important man" (because of course it can't have been May herself who has done the persuading) - is the most successful in terms of making the goal she sets herself at the start come true. When you see her teaching girls sports and watching the little girls play football (soccer, for US readers) where there have been no sports for women before, your heart flies, ditto when she explains to the assembly about the need for medical treatment accessability via local teams, and of computer classes, and both women and men listen to her. May has her emotional lows as well, when she wonders whether she shouldn't give up and go back to banking, but she pulls through.
The film leaves you in a wild mix of emotions: frustrated at the betrayal of all that hope from 2011, but also passionately invested in the women it describes and hoping for them. Though also afraid; Sharbat, the credits inform us, has finally gotten her divorce and custody of her children (though her husband is still refusing to move out of the apartment which is hers, and has kicked her out together with the children repeatedly), and she's still demonstrating and handing out political leaflets, though given the latest laws making criticism of the military and government absolutely illegal, how much longer can she do that without getting arrested? (Her oldest, teenage son has already been arrested and tortured by the police once.) Amani has risked going back to Egypt from Dubai - will she stay free? Nobody knows what has become of Fatema. May is married now to a fellow Nubian who supports her fight - but there are sabotage attempts.
In conclusion: if it's shown in your part of the world, go watch. If not, demand it should be. Or get the dvd when its released. If you want to know what the four women look like, here are photos on the film's official website with short bios in German.
The four women in question are:
- Sharbat Abdullah, an activist, who was at Tahrir Square from the start, taking her sons along. (They promptly got beaten at school for disagreeing, based on their own experiences, when the teacher claimed the military were protectors of the revolution.) Sharbat used to work for the military and thus already at the start of the film had no illusions to lose about them, but is equally sceptical and worried about the Muslim Brotherhood, yet fiercely believing that this time, people can really achieve change, that the revolution will happen if you don't give up working for it. And she's in a marriage heading towards divorce, still a social stigma in Egypt, but definitely a goal for Sharbat.
- Fatema Abouzeid, also an activist, but for the Muslim Brotherhood (she even was a co founder of the party), with directly contrasting political views; Fatema between being a part of the Mursi for president campaign, her family (like Sharbat, she has children and is married) and getting her degree at the university hardly sleeps. There's a scene after she gets her degree (thanking her husband for giving her permission to study at the start of her presentation) when she sees the photos of women from earlier classes, decades ago, and notices none of them wears headscarfs or veils. "Unbelievable," Fatema says, a dedicated Islamist. After Mursi's election victory, she's not allowed to talk to Alexandra Schneider again, and thus drops out of the picture halfway in. (Given that Mursi and the Muslim Brotherhood not only fell from power but are classified as terrorists by the current regime, chances aren't good that she and her family are still alive and in one piece.)
- Amani Eltunsi, a publisher and radio broadcaster, campaigning for women's rights both with books and on the radio (she founded and produced the first Egyptian radio programm for women), tackling such taboo subjects as divorce or circumcision. At the start of the movie, she's wildly successful, her broadcast is listened to, her books sell, though some of the few men who show up at her book presentations complain she should just accept that there can ruly one at home, which has to be the man.
- May Gah Allah, who at the start of the movie just has given up her secure job at an international bank because she is determined to start a development project for her people, the Nubians, who, being black, are an ethnic minority within Egypt and were resettled twice within the 20th century due to the building of the big reservoir dams, living in chronic poverty as the result.
All of these women were galvanized by the uprising and determined to make a change, and watching from a 2015 perspective, you know of course coming in there's heartbreak ahead, more about that in a minute. They're all interesting and different from each other, starting with the exterior. Amani and May are unmarried and wearing Western style clothing throughout, Sharbat and Fatema are married with children and wear headscarfs, though Sharbat at home sometimes doesn't; Fatema's family appears to be wealthy, but she campaigns for Mursi in the poorest quarters because that's where the Muslim brotherhood finds its clientele. Sharbat seems to be the Egyptian equivalent of lower middle class but through the movie becomes increasingly an outsider in her own quarter because she won't stop with her activism as things go back to ever greater restrictions, and it hurts to see the woman who fearlessly dances across Tahrir Square and yells at the military at the start being called a Western spy and even hit by boys in her neighbourhood two thirds in. (She doesn't give up, though.) Amani breaks your heart twice over; once in a scene where she talks with two young girls about circumcision; both girls have been circumsised around age 9 (with, btw, their mothers, not fathers, as the ones tho insisted it had to be done), and one mentions her little sisters are next, though they're trying to keep their mothers from doing it; Amani after telling the girls that there's nothing in the Qu'ran justifying female circumcision, that it's a North African tradition with no legal basis, later in her car tells Alexandra Schneider it was done to her when she was seven, held by her mother and grandmother while the family doctor cut inside her without even bothering to explain why. The other heartbreak comes when the house where Amani's publishing office (and all her books) are has been burned down, Facebook has banished her "for blasphemy", her radio website has been hacked and destroyed. It makes you want to reach through the screen in order to help her. (Amani then decides to move to Dubai and continue her internet radio and her publishing from there. She's now a regular audience over five million listeners in the Arab world.)
May, while having to put up with a lot of wonder and condescension in her home region near Assuan - one of the officials she needs a licence from asks here whether the money for her organization is American or otherwise foreign, she says no, it's all Egyptian, with Mr. Soandso (local honcho) providing much of the starting capital, the official comments "your father must be a very important man" (because of course it can't have been May herself who has done the persuading) - is the most successful in terms of making the goal she sets herself at the start come true. When you see her teaching girls sports and watching the little girls play football (soccer, for US readers) where there have been no sports for women before, your heart flies, ditto when she explains to the assembly about the need for medical treatment accessability via local teams, and of computer classes, and both women and men listen to her. May has her emotional lows as well, when she wonders whether she shouldn't give up and go back to banking, but she pulls through.
The film leaves you in a wild mix of emotions: frustrated at the betrayal of all that hope from 2011, but also passionately invested in the women it describes and hoping for them. Though also afraid; Sharbat, the credits inform us, has finally gotten her divorce and custody of her children (though her husband is still refusing to move out of the apartment which is hers, and has kicked her out together with the children repeatedly), and she's still demonstrating and handing out political leaflets, though given the latest laws making criticism of the military and government absolutely illegal, how much longer can she do that without getting arrested? (Her oldest, teenage son has already been arrested and tortured by the police once.) Amani has risked going back to Egypt from Dubai - will she stay free? Nobody knows what has become of Fatema. May is married now to a fellow Nubian who supports her fight - but there are sabotage attempts.
In conclusion: if it's shown in your part of the world, go watch. If not, demand it should be. Or get the dvd when its released. If you want to know what the four women look like, here are photos on the film's official website with short bios in German.
no subject
Date: 2015-09-13 05:04 pm (UTC)Still, I hope this actually makes it to North America; I'll keep an eye out in reports from film festivals.
no subject
Date: 2015-09-14 06:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-09-14 04:54 pm (UTC)(Quick spelling note, btw: it's Tahrir Square, not Tahir.)
no subject
Date: 2015-09-14 06:05 pm (UTC)Since German and English transcriptions of Arab names are always different, this is a regular headache...
no subject
Date: 2015-09-14 06:10 pm (UTC)