I've been a longtime fan of foreign and independent films and documentaries. One summer during college, I stayed home and watched all these serious, but sad, foreign documentaries, and my friends couldn't stand how depressed they made me feel. We'd go out and try to have fun- college kids, summertime, you know, and I'd go on about how much the documentary about Romanian street kids sniffing paint, made me cry. (It was really heartbreaking, I'll never forget it: Children Underground.) We made a deal: no more sad documentaries. But I still sneak them in on days when I don't have any social obligations and can spend the whole day crying in my pjs.
There's a broad selection of films here from every continent, and luckily they all have subtitles, so it caters to all audiences as well. The best part is that the tickets are only 5 or 10 LE, about $.80 or $1.50, which is 1/3 of the price of a ticket at the movie theatres here, so it nicely encourages people to see several of the films.
The setting couldn't be better, as it is entirely located at the Cairo Opera House. It is a quiet and isolated place in Gezira, just south of where I live in Zamalek. This is where I have been for most of the week, a convenient hideaway from all the brewing chaos in Tahrir Square (5 minutes east of me) and the Presidential Palace in Heliopolis (30 minutes northeast of Tahrir Square). There's a nice outdoor cafe with free wifi to relax in, in between films. One of the films I viewed was held in the open air theatre on a massive screen. It was called "Winter of Discontent," a fantastic movie about last year's revolution. Another was in the opera's main theatre, so I was also able to get into the museum displaying costumes from operas like Aida and La Boheme. It was wonderful! The Opera House is so beautiful!
However, like most things, there has been some controversy associated with the festival. For one, there have been protests against it for lack of support of the organizers who were appointed by the government, and with this political climate, that's to be expected. In addition, some artists feel that it doesn't include enough films from independent artists, which should otherwise provide them a great opportunity for exposure. Sadly, one of the films I was most looking forward to seeing, boycotted the festival after Morsi made his decree. It is called "In Search of Oil and Sand." The trailer looked amazing and I somehow still have to see it.
The only criticism I have about the festival is that it could be better organized. The festival is running a day behind schedule, because the first day was cancelled thanks to the protests, so all the printed programs are inaccurate. That and when you purchase your ticket, you must know the name of the film and what theatre it is playing in, and not only do the ticket sellers not have this information available for you, but they do not speak English either. I had to translate for a few foreigners, which was fortunate for them at that moment, but otherwise discouraging for non-Arabic speaking guests.
Then again, we are in Cairo, so these kinds of things should generally be expected... But all in all, it's been a good week and I saw some interesting films and some not so interesting films.
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