Cairo-Berlin Return: early Arab-German Cooperation in Film – The Egyptian-German Example

The Arab-German cooperation in film began after World War I in 1919/1920 when the first Egyptians came to learn the then brand new art in Germany, and has been continuing with different Arab partners ever since. Yet there is neither a public nor a professional awareness of this history. When Arab and German film professionals meet at international co-production platforms today, they practically get together as strangers. Despite its richness, the common history does not serve as a point of reference. It is not written. This paper, therefore, attempts to shed light on this forgotten period of cooperation. It looks at how and why such a collaboration was initiated. Moreover, it describes its different formats and also why the Egyptian-German encounter eventually came to an end

From the Field: Co-Producing the Memory. Cinema Production between Europe and the Middle East

Over the past ten years an increasing amount of films from the Middle East have entered the international film festival circuit. Some major works like Paradise Now (Al-Jana Alan, Hany Abu Assad, NL/D/F/IL 2005), Caramel (Sukr Banat, Nadine Labaki, F/LB 2007), or Waltz With Bashir (Waltz Im Bashir, Ari Folman, IL/D/F/USA/B/CH/AUS 2008) also get theatrical releases in Europe and the USA. There they are often read as documents and authentic insights into a foreign culture. At the same time German funds boasted about the Oscar nominations for Paradise Now and Waltz with Bashir. Michael Schmid-Ospach, then head of influential Filmstiftung NRW was quoted in a fund’s press release of February 2nd 2006: ‘I keep my fingers crossed that Paradise Now will also take the Oscar to NorthRhine-Westphalia’, and the daily newspaper Hamburger Abendblatt stated on March 16th 2009 that Waltz With Bashir was ‘besides Uli Edel’s The Baader Meinhof Complex and Werner Herzog’s documentary Encounters at the End of the World yet another German iron in the award-fire’. Due to very high production costs of cinema movies, and a lack of funding in the region of origin, most of the financing for films from the Middle East is provided by European public funds. As ownership of a film is bound to financing, Paradise Now and Waltz With Bashir are indeed German movies. In this article I aim to look at the effects of co-production between Europe and the Middle East on the processes of production and the reception of the films. A short overview of public film policy in Arab Middle Eastern countries and Israel, as well as an example of European public media interventions in the Middle East, introduce key aspects of production and ideas behind European approaches to film-making in the region

From the field: As if they do not exist. Images of (be)longing and of owning Palestine

Films from or about Palestine are frequently programmed at international film festivals. They are sometimes released in cinemas and quite often presented in special screenings at various institutions all over the Western World. Due to the scarcity of screens and the boycott of Israel, they are seen to a lesser extend in Arab countries. Compared to screenings of other Arab films or the presentation of movies from other former colonies and mandatory territories, Western audiences often react highly emotional to the images from Palestine. In debates questions for a better understanding of the films’ subject or context are barely ever asked. Rather the foreign spectators seem to have a sense of belonging and to claim the right for co-determination. Where do these emotional ties originate from? In recent years a large number of films shot in Palestine during the late Ottoman period and the British mandate were made accesssible online, mainly by the Steven Spielberg Film Archive in Jerusalem and the British War Museum in London. Libraries like the Library of Congress in Washington digitized parts of their photographic collections. Based on them as well as on the films I work with as distributor and programmer for Arab film series, in this article I look at images on and from Palestine and ask for what purpose, in which context and by whom they were made and distributed

Seeing revolution non-linearly: www.filmingrevolution.org

Filming Revolution, launched in 2015, is an online interactive data base documentary tracing the strands and strains of independent (mostly) documentary filmmaking in Egypt since the revolution. Consisting of edited interviews with 30 filmmakers, archivists, activists, and artists based in Egypt, the website is organised by the themes that emerged from the material, allowing the viewer to engage in an unlimited set of “curated dialogues” about issues related to filmmaking in Egypt since 2011. With its constellatory interactive design, Filming Revolution creates as much as documents a community of makers, as it attempts to grapple with approaches to filmmaking in the wake of such momentous historical events. The non-hierarchical polysemous structure of the project is meant to echo the rhizomatic, open-ended aspect of the revolution and its aftermath, in yet another affirmation and instantiation of contemporary civil revolution as a non-linear, ever-unfolding, on-going, event

As if they do not exist. Images of (be)longing and of owning Palestine

Films from or about Palestine are frequently programmed at international film festivals. They are sometimes released in cinemas and quite often presented in special screenings at various institutions all over the Western World. Due to the scarcity of screens and the boycott of Israel, they are seen to a lesser extend in Arab countries. Compared to screenings of other Arab films or the presentation of movies from other former colonies and mandatory territories, Western audiences often react highly emotional to the images from Palestine. In debates questions for a better understanding of the films’ subject or context are barely ever asked. Rather the foreign spectators seem to have a sense of belonging and to claim the right for co-determination. Where do these emotional ties originate from? In recent years a large number of films shot in Palestine during the late Ottoman period and the British mandate were made accesssible online, mainly by the Steven Spielberg Film Archive in Jerusalem and the British War Museum in London. Libraries like the Library of Congress in Washington digitized parts of their photographic collections. Based on them as well as on the films I work with as distributor and programmer for Arab film series, in this article I look at images on and from Palestine and ask for what purpose, in which context and by whom they were made and distributed

Co-Producing the Memory. Cinema Production between Europe and the Middle East

Over the past ten years an increasing amount of films from the Middle East have entered the international film festival circuit. Some major works like Paradise Now (Al-Jana Alan, Hany Abu Assad, NL/D/F/IL 2005), Caramel (Sukr Banat, Nadine Labaki, F/LB 2007), or Waltz With Bashir (Waltz Im Bashir, Ari Folman, IL/D/F/USA/B/CH/AUS 2008) also get theatrical releases in Europe and the USA. There they are often read as documents and authentic insights into a foreign culture