'Men are behind most of these women’s problems’

CAIRO // “When am I going to get married?” asks one woman. “When am I going to get pregnant?” asks the next. “When am I going to get out of my terrible marriage?” says another.

Such were three of the questions posed by women in a series of 35 one-minute films titled Questions, produced during two filmmaking workshops by 20 first-time female directors and actresses and shown recently at a Cairo cultural centre.

Divided into 15 “questions” and 20 “motamaredat” (rebels), the shorts dealt candidly with the issues and concerns of women in the Arab world.

One of the motamaredat movies shows a woman with a black niqab riding a bicycle and listening to Spoil Me, a song by a Lebanese pop singer, Nancy Ajram. Another shows a veiled woman taking off her veil and apologising to other women for being late for a belly-dancing class.

One film dealing with sexual harassment shows a group of women being verbally harassed by a man out of camerashot as they are walking down the street. Silently they start walking towards the voice, getting ready to attack him.

Another shows a single woman sadly celebrating her 30th birthday, remembering her former boyfriend telling her “when you turn 30, you will feel lost and lonely, without a man beside you and no one will ask about you”. She is awakened from these thoughts by female friends who have come to celebrate her birthday with dancing.

In another film dealing with sexism and marriage, a woman is being prodded by her husband as she is about to enter their home. He is screaming: “The fact that you are supporting the house doesn’t mean you can forget I’m the man.

“If your family failed to make you behave, I will teach you.” Without saying a word, she slams the door and leaves.

“I was really touched by this film, it’s very revealing of one of the taboos of our societies and touches on a very sensitive and raw nerve about the man’s role in the household,” said Afaf el Sayyed, 45, a feminist. “More than 32 per cent of Egyptian homes are solely supported by women, but our male-dominated society is not acknowledging that and doesn’t know how to deal with it.

“I was also touched by the woman wearing the niqab and rebelling by riding the bicycle. She reminded me of myself, as I wore the niqab when I was 20 and took it off nine years later,” said Ms el Sayyed, who heads the Heya (She) women’s institute, which combats violence and discrimination against women.

“All the women expressed themselves in a simple, soft and transparent way. They just want to live in peace. They didn’t clash with their societies or traditions, they are just trying to practise their humanity.”

Not everyone was so enthused. One male member of the audience criticised the one-sidedness of the films though he got short shrift from the predominantly female audience.

“Where is the man in these films?” said John Ikram. “Men also have their problems.”
“You can have a male workshop,” replied Marwa Abdallah, a participant in the workshop in her twenties who directed one film and acted in two. “What do you want to rebel against?” she added to laughter.

Other men in the audience backed her up.

“The man is behind most of these women’s problems,” said Rami Raouf, a male women’s rights activist.

Amr Salama, a movie director, agreed. “We men should be ashamed because it’s very evident that most of the women’s problems are due to our attitudes and wrong behaviour.”

Amal Ramsis, a film director who supervised the workshops, said the only condition for participation was that the women be first-time actresses and filmmakers. “Some of them never touched a camera in their lives,” she said.

“I was fascinated by them, and by their wonderful ideas, and how they are adamant about defending them,” said Ms Ramsis, 37, who studied directing in Spain after obtaining a law degree in Egypt.

“Each one of them filmed and directed her idea, and chose who acted it,” though participants were not allowed to act in their own films.

The workshops were funded by the Spanish Embassy in Cairo and the Renaissance Association for Scientific and Cultural Development, where the films were made with mini-digital video cameras.

“All the ideas were discussed freely. There was no censorship. We didn’t know each other and were coming from different backgrounds, which wasn’t problematic at all,” Ms Ramsis said. “As a matter of fact, the discussions became like mass therapy, letting off steam as result of all pressures on us, which made us all very happy.

“I’m Christian, but this didn’t cause any problems with the majority of the actresses, who are Muslims and some of them wearing the veil. Actually, the idea of the film about a woman in niqab who lectured others about taking the veil and niqab as they were waiting at a clinic, ending with a non-veiled woman putting on earphones with very loud music in order not to hear her, was a veiled woman’s idea, which is amazing,” Ms Ramsis said.

“I don’t think that one-minute films will cause a rebellion,” Ms Ramsis said when asked if she thinks that such movies could change negative attitudes towards women. “The goal is to express ourselves with a camera.”