WUNRN
Egypt: Tahani Rashed on Her Documentary Movie "These
Girls"
The Egyptian director, Tahani Rashed, has highlighted through her
documentary film "These Girls" the problem of street girls. The film
has been awarded a prize at Cannes. Nelly Youssef conducts the following
interview with the director
Tahani Rashed: "Street girls are victims of a
society that suffers from poverty and need, a society where making a living has
become difficult as is the preservation of one's humanity and dignity" Why did you choose
this subject in particular for the film?
Tahani Rashed: My enthusiasm for the movie is essentially derived from
the enthusiasm of the girls themselves. I had many questions about their lives
in the streets amid the filth. I approached them; I came to know them and
empathized with their stories; I wanted to show a few beautiful moments in what
is largely a very harsh life and their innocence despite the cruelty,
oppression and dangers which each one undergoes.
Because I meet these girls in the streets like everyone else in Egypt does and
I see them, I wanted to decode their private world and I started to prepare for
that movie from 1997 and began filming in 2004. It was produced by Studio Misr.
Prior to the filming I did a field study with the production group that lasted
for six months in order to build trust between us and the street girls. Through
them I came to know a lot about the charity organizations that provide for them
as well as the psychological support they receive through organizations such as
Amal (Hope) to which Abla Hind was one of its members. She is featured in the
film with her compassionate personality radiating love and humanity; she
assumes the multiple roles of friend, surrogate mother and gives them all the
love that they have missed.
To live in the streets of big cities like Cairo is for
thousands of Egyptian children an endless vicious circle In my mind, I wanted
the viewer to interact with the girls, to come to love them and empathize with
their down-trodden condition. These girls live hard lives; they are victims to
circumstances such as broken families which they escaped from the moment they
could get a chance.
After that another set of circumstances spirals into effect and that is the
oppression of society to these girls and we are all responsible for that. In a
sense, they are victims of a society that also suffers from poverty and need, a
society where making a living has become difficult as is the preservation of
one's humanity and dignity.
Why does the film focus only on girls and not boys?
Rashed: I have been directing films for many years and I have come to
like working with women and girls. I like the ease with which they narrate
their lives, express their feelings unlike boys and men in general.
Through your experience and contact with these girls for a long time, what
are the causes that drive them to the street?
Rashed: There is not one particular factor; one can say that poverty in
general drives them to be out there on the street. They lack the material
resources that would allow them to grow up in the way that they had dreamt of;
there is also divorce or family breakups; each girl has a separate story.
What I like about them is that they did not like what life had to offer them;
they wanted a different sort of life. I have been very impressed with that
desire in them – rejecting one reality and looking for another. They are
looking, of course, with the wrong means and they are young – the age group
ranges from 10 to 22 – they want to play and to be free from all the
constraints, oppression and poverty. This was obvious in the scene where they
all are dancing together; dancing is a desire for liberation.
There has been the criticism directed to all cinema producers who live
overseas and which was raised after this film was shown and that is that your
eyes only spot the negative things in Egyptian society in order to appease
foreign film festivals. What is your comment to such a remark?
Street girls live hard lives; they are victims to
circumstances such as broken families which they escaped from the moment they
could get a chance, says Rashed Rashed: The reputation of Egypt is too
encompassing to be applied in this simplistic way. All countries – whether poor
or rich – have people living on the streets thus the topic is not limited to
Egypt. Documenting the problem through film with its realism was a shock
driving some to deny it as if it does not exist; furthermore, I am only
documenting one small segment of society and not the entire society.
The problem with those who make such statements about the reputation of Egypt
is that they overlook cases such as the accidental sinking of a ferry [in the
Red Sea] months ago and the drowning of thousands without anyone being held
accountable or the fire that broke out in the theatre of the cultural center in
Asyut where people died without any security forces or ambulances nearby –
these are the cases that affect the reputation of Egypt and not a film that
discusses the problem of street girls.
What about the position that accepts the problem of street girls but objects
to the excessive bad language in your film which has caused it to be banned
from running in the cinemas, what is your position on that?
Rashed: This has nothing to do with creativity. When I shoot a
documentary, a realistic film, I cannot ask the girls to speak in a limited
vocabulary, these are words we hear on the streets every day. I believe that
reality and truth should be exposed without any intervention or censorship. I
am happy that my film is being shown in festivals and various cultural centers
throughout this country which proves that there are venues and other possible
options to show the movie apart from the commercial outlets.
It has often been said that the welfare organizations are what drive these
girls to the street in the first place. From your pilot study before filming,
how do you see these homes and what do they lack?
Rashed: Personally, what they lack is love; these girls need love and
warmth such as one would find in the character of Abla Hind; she does not
attempt to change the circumstances of these girls and offers pragmatic advice.
These homes and welfare organizations should basically change the way they
operate; they also need funding from the government and support from society at
large beyond the mere slogans. Each one of us should reconsider the way we
treat these girls; the film screams to solve their problem.
What is the difference between these girls here and those in Western
countries?
Rashed: In the West the homeless on the street live in a hell of their
own; whereas here there is a solidarity of sorts. One of the things that I have
found out was a readiness to forgive others which is not found in the West.
Interview conducted by Nelly Youssef
© Qantara.de 2007
Translated from the Arabic by Mona Zaki
Tahani Rashed was born in Cairo in 1947 and immigrated to Canada in 1966. She
is a graduate of the College of Fine Arts in Montreal; the titles of her
documentary career include "In Order to Change", "Give me Back
my Country", "A Woman from Palestine", and "In a Popular
Eatery".
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