The 12th edition of IDM Film Commission Südtirol’s INCONTRI cinema conference dissected the current tableau of Arab and European co-productions. A large delegation from Egypt, Libia, Palestine, Tunisia, and the United Arab Emirates flocked to the event.
One panel was moderated by Vincenzo Bugno – head of the Berlinale’s World Cinema Fund and Artistic Director of the Bolzano Film Festival – and by Ayman El Amir, Egyptian producer and screenwriter. The panellists participated in a lively debate regarding the importance of what, according to Bugno, was the “decolonisation” of relations vis-à-vis Arab films co-financed by Europe.
Since the mid-90s, the European Union and its Member States – chiefly among them France and Germany – have encouraged cinema co-productions between Europe and the MENA region (Middle East and North Africa). This collaboration contributed to the flourishing of Arabic films, some of which became Oscar nominees: Paradise Now by Palestinian director Hany Abu Assad, Capernaum by Nadine Labaki from Lebanon, and For Sama, a documentary co-directed by Syrian director Waad Al-Khateab and Edward Watts. Arabic countries in the Middle East don’t have the means to finance their films: directors and producers depend on European cooperation. And while European partners are often proud of their films’ success, their counterparts in the Middle East expose the relations’ “new colonial” element.
“I also want to make a film with a universal appeal: what does ‘universal’ mean in the first place? A better question when co-producing a film is, ‘who is our audience’? Or audiences, rather, which makes matters complicated.”
Amal Ramsis, Egyptian director and producer, says, “We don’t have local financing: we need co-productions.” The founder of the Women Filmmakers Caravan, an association supporting films made by Arab women, continues, “But co-producers focus on European cinemagoers. Not ours. The way I speak with my people is markedly different from how I speak with others. Let’s think about that. I’m a director in an Arabic world, but I also want to make a film with a universal appeal: what does ‘universal’ mean in the first place? A better question when co-producing a film is, ‘who is our audience’? Or audiences, rather, which makes matters complicated.” Bugno expressed his deep scepticism about the use of “universal” when included in financing tenders or requests from film projects from the Arabic universe. He also highlighted how the West wants to see films from elsewhere which are genuine. “The best way to define a project’s potential success is to think in terms of ‘the more it’s local, the more it will be international’.” He noted that during the last Berlinale, the Panorama Audience Award went to Sira by Apolline Traoré, a feminist “revenge drama” from Burkina Faso deeply rooted in the country. In it, Sira, a young nomad, doesn’t give up after suffering a brutal attack, and takes a stance against Islamic terrorism by picking up a rifle. Bugno concluded that, “An audience doesn’t care where a film comes from.”
For some Arab directors, finding a foreign audience is crucial. Amjad Abu Alala, a Sudanese living in Dubai, said, “My film was never shown in Sudan [where cinemas are few and far between, editor’s note].” In 2019 his drama You Will Die at Twenty won the Lion of the Future at the Venice Film Festival. A dervish in a Sudanese village tells a young boy he’s destined to die at 20. Abu Alala is also a producer and, when thinking about potential cultural clashes arising from co-productions, he spoke in favour of the current system by describing his personal experience. “Co-productions are important because we don’t have a single dime for cinema. They’re our only solution. Having said that, I was worried about losing creative oversight – however, as a director, you need to know what you want and know how to convince others that it’s necessary. My Egyptian and Norwegian co-producers were with me on set and by my side until I won the prize in Venice. I know co-productions are here to stay because I’ll never receive all my budget from Sudan.”
“Fifteen years ago, without ARTE [European cultural channel, editor’s note] and the Les cinémas du monde fund in France, making films was impossible.”
Georges Schoucair is a Lebanese producer at the head of About Productions, a prominent society which produced films such as Costa Brava, Lebanon by Mounia Akl – which premiered in Venice – and Memory Box by Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige – which was nominated for the Berlinale Competition. He emphasized how Arab co-productions are changing, focusing on different business models. This is partly due to the emergence of local funding opportunities, including the Doha Film Institute, Cairo Film Connection, and CineGouna Platform in Egypt, and the recently launched moneyed Red Sea Film Fund in Saudi Arabia. Schoucair said, “Fifteen years ago, without ARTE [European cultural channel, editor’s note] and the Les cinémas du monde fund in France, making films was impossible. Now, if you can raise 40% of the budget locally, you can write it on your own. You can draft a financial plan and prepare an outline of the project so that when you go to Europe you’re ready to negotiate with your co-producers.” He also added another important change in co-productions: being able to shoot Arabic films outside the Middle East. Case in point: Memory Box was set in Montréal. A Lebanese family, who had emigrated to Canada while Beirut was torn apart by civil war, receives a box full of memories. The Lebanese producer, who is about to shoot an Italian-Lebanese film in Italy, says, “Funding as well as locations are new elements in the co-production narrative.”
“What we need is a creative co-producer with whom you can make a project. Money isn’t’ everything. Especially because indie films in the Arab world are censored and co-productions are a loophole we can use.”
The debate became even more interesting when Ayman El Amir – a producer, screenwriter, and organiser of writing workshops in various Arab countries – asked participants: “What is a co-production’s financial and creative role? Do you think the status quo is changing from that perspective?”
Marianne Khoury is one of the prominent figures of Egyptian cinema. She’s been a producer, distributor, and an active stakeholder in the industry for over 40 years, taking her first steps when she collaborated with director extraordinaire Youssef Chahine. She didn’t give an answer which was absolute, as every project is different. “What we need is a creative co-producer with whom you can make a project. Money isn’t’ everything. Especially because indie films in the Arab world are censored and co-productions are a loophole we can use. When you receive support, you can do the project. Then again, there’s a fine line between co-producing for purely financial reasons and doing so also for the creative aspect.”
Hanna Atallah emphasized the significance of co-productions to overcome censorship. He’s the founder of Filmlab Palestine, which promotes filmmaking and viewing in Palestine. “Young directors, with one or two films under their belt, might need five or six years to find a European co-producer. Yet co-productions are fundamental as 80% of our films are political.”
Positive and negative sides emerged during this talk about European and MENA co-productions, with the pros by all accounts outweighing the cons.
Abu Bakr Shawky, an Austrian-Egyptian author, will receive the support of the IDM Film Fund & Commission for his new project, Ramses (working title). His debut feature film, Yomeddine, received the rare honour of being nominated for the 2018 Cannes Festival. Ramses – produced by Schubert Füm in Vienna and co-produced with the Schubert Film in Berlin – is a political satire, black comedy, and a road movie.