And on a Different Note and more

And on a Different Note

2015. Egypt. Directed by Mohammad Shawky Hassan. Domestic scenes filmed in Cairo and New York unfold to a continuous stream of political talk shows and onscreen text, at times transcribing the exchanges and at others bringing the viewer into the director’s interior world. The 24-hour news cycle and social media networks supersede national borders, revealing both an existential fatigue in light of world affairs and guarded playfulness at having—through the cinematic process—carved out time shielded from them. 24 min.

Out on the Street

2015. Egypt. Directed by Philip Rizk, Jasmina Metwaly. In an acting workshop in a working-class Cairo neighborhood, 10 men recount episodes of exploitation, humiliation, and injustice; their stories center on the privatization of a factory but invariably extend to harassment by police and Egypt’s corrupt justice system. The workers then reenact these scenarios, creating a biting exposé of worker conditions ever more effective for the immediacy of the one-room setting, which affirms itself—in the real time of the workshop—as a momentary haven from a life of precariousness. Directors Jasmina Metwaly and Philip Rizk, members of the Egyptian video collective Mosireen, embarked on this project to move beyond what they perceive as the limitations of activist filmmaking. Departing from that process—through which they and countless others had documented protests during the Arab Spring—has allowed a different kind of document to take form in Out on the Street. The film is ultimately a work of fiction, yet one that powerfully depicts a collective experience of disenfranchisement. In a society so thoroughly rigged against its people, the film locates itself, and perhaps the role of making art, as part of global discourses around present-day capitalism and questions about what a more viable future might be. 71 min.