August 29, 2003

(cairolive.com) For the first time an Egyptian film is going to the Oscars. That’s the sound bite. The fine print is that Sahar El-Layaly — the “hottest film of the summer” — will have to compete with at least 50 other films entered in the US Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Best Foreign Film category for 2003.

On Tuesday afternoon a committee meeting at the Ministry of Culture’s offices in Dokki decided to nominate the film as Egypt’s official entry to the Oscars, a decision that looks set to catapult Sahar El-Layaly to ever greater heights of hype.

Chaired by veteran journalist Kamel El-Zohairi, and including actor Mahmoud Yassin, actress and producer Isaad Younis, scriptwriter Rafik El-Sabban, director Samir Seif and critic Ahmed Saleh among others, the committee — unusually for such a gathering of “elders” — seemed happy to push this youth-dominated pop culture product.

According to the committee’s statement the film was chosen because of “its new and daring ideas and opinions,” the “sophisticated cinematic language used to express human sentiments” and “the simple performances from its actors.”

Buoyed by the announcement the film’s director, Hany Khalifa, told the Weekly that he is not overly concerned about the film’s chances of making it to the competition’s final round. “I don’t know what they are expecting from a film from this region. Our film is not political. I don’t know if a Western mentality will accept that.” Khalifa said it was enough for him the film resonated with local audiences.

Committee member Yassin told the Weekly that “the committee did not expressly take into consideration what Western audiences wanted to see.” That, he argued, would have involved adopting a “cowboy mentality’.

Egypt was invited to submit a film by the Academy’s Executive Director Bruce Davis, who asked Cairo Film Festival President Cherif El-Shoubashi to form a committee to choose the Egyptian entry. El-Shoubashi is realistic about this particular film – or any Egyptian film’s — chances. He hopes, however, “that it will get people in the cinema industry thinking. Here’s this door that’s been opened, this high level space that we’ve got to fill. Let’s work towards doing that.”

The committee looked at 23 films released since November 2002. In the end it boiled down to a choice between Sahar El-Layaly and Ma’ali Al-Wazir, starring Ahmed Zaki, a surreal exploration of a corrupt minister’s conscience.

Only five foreign films eventually make it to the finals in the category. In general these are films that have won major international prizes. According to the BBC films from 54 countries will be forwarded to Academy members this year. Not always the most popular film in any given country the criteria that goes into their selection is often confusing.

There are also issues of subtitling and translation, particularly given one of Sahar El-Layaly’s main selling points is that it’s so real, so slang, so the way shabab actually talk on the (well-paved) street.

France and Italy have won the lion’s share of awards since the prize was established in 1948. Last year the German film Nowhere in Africa beat competitors from Finland, China, Mexico and the Netherlands. The only Arab or African wins were Algeria in 1969 with Z, and Black and White in Color from Ivory Coast in 1976.

An Oscar speculation website is backing films from Argentina, Canada, India, Italy and Norway as this year’s favorites.

Whatever the eventual outcome Sahar El-Layaly has already received a lot of publicity in the Western press. Everyone from the BBC to E-women’s news have done stories, relating the film to social trends like greater liberalism and religiosity. Rumour has it the Hollywood Reporter was interested in doing a story on the film even before the selection was announced. But the articles are usually written by correspondents in Cairo who live and breathe the same air that’s portrayed so realistically by the film — at least for the two per cent of the population that holds their children’s birthday parties at places like Appleby’s on the Nile.

But will the Oscar committee and potential American and global audiences be impressed by these modern lifestyles, pleasantly surprised that Cairo is not all citadels and camels? Was this part of the film’s attraction, the image of Egypt the committee wanted to offer? Or will they be bored? After all, most cultural products that successfully cross borders embrace the exotic rather than the ordinary.

Khalifa thinks the committee may have chosen the film because it shows a new generation talking about their problems. It’s fresh, he says. “It’s a human story that could take place anywhere and art should be like that.”

The chosen film’s ordinariness, though, has been a point of contention among local audiences.

“It’s not that it’s a great film,” is how 33-year-old Hisham summed it up. “It’s just that there’s nothing else out there, and it’s a decent, well-made, interesting film that deals with a serious topic rather than just dumb comedy like everything else out there, so it stands out. But alone it’s not wow.”

Wael, Hisham’s friend, is more enthusiastic. “It’s one of the best films in the history of Egyptian cinema. The dialogue is so real. You feel like it’s your life.”

Image appears to have caught up with reality as the Sahar El-Layaly effect has crept into life in many ways — via ads and video clips that fill the yawning gap that used to exist between the speed at which society is changing and the reflection of that change in popular culture — the pixilated reflection of the many things with which we fill our days.