Cannes Film Festival: What did the Arab participation look like in this year’s edition?

The film “Born from Heaven” by Swedish director of Egyptian origin, Tariq Saleh, won the award for best screenplay in the official competition of the festival, and it sheds light on the administration of the Al-Azhar Foundation and its relationship with the Egyptian state.

Egyptian art critic Tarek El-Shennawy believes that the film technically “does not deserve the award.” He told the BBC: “The weakest link in the film, regardless of the political situation, is the script,” adding that the film’s content “reflects the director’s failure to study the Al-Azhar Foundation.”

The Egyptian critic and head of the International Critics Union’s jury at Cannes this year, Ahmed Shawky, considered that “the audacity of the topic addressed by Saleh won the admiration of critics and the international press, but the weakness of the artistic side of the film made it a wasted opportunity.”

Shawky added in an interview with the BBC: “Tariq Saleh has freedom in making an attractive film that allows him to freely present political conflicts and balances of power, and I am with him in that, but my problem with the film is that it did not present these issues in an appropriate artistic manner, and this is very prominent when compared to the film.” The Iranian “Holy Spider” directed by Ali Abbasi, where the two films are similar in production conditions and the sensitivity of the subject to the countries concerned, but it is clear from the comparison that there is a problem in the essence of the characters of the movie “Born from Heaven”, where you find yourself in a struggle between ideas and not a conflict between the characters of the film. “

The heroine of the movie “The Holy Spider”, Iranian actress Zar Amir Ebrahimi, won the best actress award in the official competition of the festival, an award that also raised questions among critics, as her performance was not the best in the competition in the opinion of some.

Tariq Saleh’s movie was filmed in Turkey because the director was not allowed to shoot in Egypt, and filmmakers believe that the film will not be shown in Egypt due to restrictions imposed on the director and his works by the Egyptian government, which was indicated by Saleh himself while receiving the award.

While the Egyptian director and director of the Cairo Film Festival, Amir Ramses, expressed his dislike of the film from a technical point of view, he expressed his sympathy with Saleh for his inability to shoot the film in Egypt and present it to the Egyptian audience to judge its artistic content.

This is not the first time that the festival has sided with controversial films. Last year, the Egyptian film “Feathers”, directed by Omar Al-Zuhairi, won two prizes at the festival, one of which was the grand prize for the International Critics’ Week competition in the 74th session, which is the first prize for an Egyptian film. Long in the history of the festival. The film sparked a lot of controversy in Egypt when it was shown.

It can be said that the Tunisian participation was the richest in the Arab world this year.

Tunisia was officially represented in a look competition through the movie “Harga” by the American director of Egyptian origin Lotfi Nathan, where the Tunisian film hero Adam Besa won the award for best actor in the competition.

The film is the director’s first fictional work and deals with the problem of poverty, unemployment and marginalized groups through the story of a young man in his twenties who is pushed by events to set himself on fire in front of the governorate building without paying attention to any of the passersby.

Regarding the choice of the film’s subject, director Lotfi Nathan told the BBC: “I decided to make the film to make a symbol of the character “Bouazizi.”

The Tunisian director, Youssef Chebbi, also participated in the festival with the film “Ashkal”, while the Tunisian director, Areej Al-Sahiri, participated in the film “Under the Fig Tree” in the “Directors’ Half Month” competition. The two films represent the first time that both directors have struggled to direct fiction.

The “One Look” competition also witnessed a distinguished Palestinian participation by director Maha Al-Hajj in the film “Mediterranean Fever”, which won the award for best screenplay in the competition. Fabim tells the story of an ambitious Palestinian writer who suffers from depression, and develops a friendship with his fraudulent neighbor, who begins to implement an evil scheme to help him get out of depression.

In the same competition, Moroccan director Maryam Touzani participated in her film “The Blue Caftan”, which is her second participation in the festival’s activities, as she previously screened her film “Adam” in the 2019 edition.

The events of “The Blue Caftan” revolve around the life and secrets of a married couple who run a shop specializing in Moroccan caftans in the city of Salé, adjacent to Rabat.

At the level of juries, the Cannes Film Festival witnessed this year a distinguished Arab and Egyptian participation, as the Egyptian director Yousry Nasrallah headed the jury for the short film competition, a competition that saw the nomination of 9 films.

From Egypt, film critic Ahmed Shawky chaired the jury of the International Federation of Film Critics, while Moroccan critic Jihane Bou Grain participated as a member of the same committee. Tunisian director Kaouthar Ben Hania, director of the film “The Man Who Sold His Back,” presided over the critics’ competition. Documentary producer Mohamed Refaat participated in the jury of the “Documentary Films in Production” competition.

Egyptian critic Tariq El-Shennawy believes that this year’s Cannes Festival has become a political platform, which we note, according to him, not only in view of the festival’s choices and awards, but in view of the speech given by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky during the opening, which is not in line with the nature of the event. As an artistic cultural front.