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Stories that cross barriers
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Egyptian film-maker Nadia Kamel’s thoughts on mixed marriages strike a chord with her audience
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Director’s take Nadia Kamel
The mainstream tries to suppress alternative cinema, says Nadia Kamel. The only difference is, she is talking about the Egyptian film industry and not Indian. “We have a Cairo‘wood’ like Bollywood, though it’s not such a huge
and efficient industry. But it has the same diseases. The mainstream actors in Egypt give more importance to the remuneration, so I am considering working with non-professional actors for my next venture,” the Egyptian film-maker says.
Nadia’s documentary Salata Baladi (A House Salad), won the Best Documentary Film Award at the recent Mumbai International Film Festival. Over a cup of coffee, she says earnestly, “I least expected the award.” Salata Baladi is a multi-ethnic documentary that reflects and celebrates the history of mixed marriages in Egypt, in Nadia’s family to be precise, over 100 years.
The origins of some of her family members can be traced to Russia, Turkey, Spain, Israel, South of Egypt and other nations. “The documentary recalls how these people met by chance, got married and live together. Of late, such stories are being erased; the process of living or working together has been disrupted by sorting people according to religion and ethnicity; people are being displaced,” she says.
She felt the need to tell the story of mixed marriages “to just tell everyone that these people existed. We cherish the past and are fighting for the present.” The film takes you along as Nadia’s mother recalls stories from the family to Nadia’s young nephew Nabeel and plans a visit to Israel to meet a few friends and family members. “Whenever I placed a recorder near my mother, she would clam up; but she opened up to the idea of sharing her stories with my nephew. As she narrated stories about people in our family, she was changing and so was I. We felt the need to do something for children, like my nephew, who are growing up not knowing there is an alternative way to live. They are conditioned to think that life is about one community fighting against enemies. And this is true of every country. I shot the film for over five years and had nearly 300 hours of video to edit.”
Nadia says, “In a lot of ways, India is similar to Egypt. The crowded streets, the way people live together in large families and the relaxed social organisation… but Egypt does not have the diverse social fabric of India.” Of course, the audience drew parallels and connected with her documentary.
SANGEETHA DEVI DUNDOO
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