These Girls
(El-Banate Dol)
Egypt | 2006 | 68 minutes | Color | DVD | Arabic | Subtitled | Order No. 07924
SYNOPSIS
Rached brings alive the pulse of Cairo’s streets, offering an unsentimental portrait that avoids traps of guilt or cheap pity. What stands out is the strength and sheer joy that these girls project. With deft skill Rached reveals an invisible world and offers a loving homage to the inspirational, fierce girls who inhabit it.
PRESS
“Exhilarating… The filmmaker has a remarkable ability to delve into the intimate levels of relationships with her subjects. Highly recommended for discussions on topics of women’s agency, marginality, subjectivity, identity formation, power, and resistance.”
“Inspired…compelling...Jaunty…in keeping with the overpowering child-like energy of the girls themselves.”
“Presents their day-to-day lives with sympathy unadulterated by analysis or First World pity.”
“Follows the lives of these young women without sentimentalizing or sensationalizing their plight, but depicts the severity of their tragedy by allowing audiences to observe their lives at face value.”
“A brief but haunting window into a tragic world, the film captures the young women in all their persevering strength and marginalized wretchedness.”
“3 ½ Stars. Highly Recommended. Remarkable… Rached’s unusual access to the girls’ world pays off brilliantly in this intimate and often heartbreaking expose of a side of Egyptian society unseen in the west.”
SCREENING HIGHLIGHTS AND AWARDS
- Festival Cinéma Méditerranéen, Prix Ulysse
- Carthage Film Festival, Jury Award
- Cannes Film Festival
- Go Girls! at Symphony Space
- Sheffield Documentary Film Festival
- Arab Film Festival, San Francisco, CA
- Toronto Int’l Film Festival
- NY Film Festival
- Miami Int’l Film Festival
- Montreal Festival de Nouveau Cinema
- Dubai Int’l Film Festival
- Cairo Int’l Film Festival
- Stockholm Int’l Film Festival
- Washington DC International Film Festival
- New Orleans Middle East Film Festival
ABOUT FILMMAKER(S)
Born in Egypt, Tahani Rached settled in Quebec in 1966. After attending Montreal's École des Beaux-Arts, she was involved in community action until she made her first film, Pour Faire Changement (1972), a documentary produced by Le Vidéographe, which set the tone for all her future work. In 1979, her first feature film, Les Voleurs de Jobs, revealed her distinctive view of the world. A documentary on immigration, it demonstrated her ability to capture reality. This was followed by a series of six half-hour documentaries for Radio-Quebec on Quebec's Arab community.
As a NFB staff filmmaker from 1980 to 2004, she tackled sensitive topics: war in Beirut! Not Enough Death to Go Round (1983); the resourcefulness of the disadvantaged, through the songs in Au Chic Resto Pop (1990); and a doctor's battle against AIDS in Doctors with Heart (1993). Four Women of Egypt (1997) features four women who couldn't be more different but who are nevertheless united in their search for meaning and tolerance through 50 years of contemporary Egyptian history. In Emergency! A Critical Situation (1999), an entire emergency room team speaks about their difficult work, while in For a Song (2001), it is extracurricular activities such as singing in a choir that are found to restore social ties, lift the soul and create beauty. Soraida, A Woman of Palestine (2004) captures the reflections, concerns and imagination of a Palestinian woman, her family and her neighborhood, the soul of a nation that is doing its best to survive the war and occupation.
In 2005, she comes back to Egypt and directs El-Banate Dol (These Girls) produced by Studio Masr. In 2007, she starts her latest film Giran (Neighbors), also produced by Studio Masr. (8/14)
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