Cannes Film Festival – After the Nespresso Grand Prix, the Egyptian film Feathers (feathers) Directed by Omar El Zohairy, in the Critics’ Week competition, also won the Fipresci Prize for international criticism, a parallel section. The jurors said that the film was rewarded ” For its singular mixture of comedy and tragedy, its grotesque atmosphere and its surrealist representation of poverty ».
During the first, which took place at Espace Miramar, in addition to the members of the film team, were present the Egyptian producer and president of the Cairo Film International Festival Mohamed Hefzythe French producer Daniel ZinskindMoroccan producer Lamia Chraïbi, Egyptian director Sherif El Bendary and criticism Tarek Elshinnawi and Ahmed Shawky. Many came to discover and encourage this Egyptian film and its young director.
The poster for the film feathers (feathers)
Charles Tesson, general delegate of criticism, presented the film by praising it and even specifying that it was the last film in competition and that the best was for the end: “Feathers (feathers) managed the bet to make the absurd possible. Fabulous account from a woman’s point of view who is forced to take care of her family and raise a chicken which is supposed to be her husband. The film makes the impossible obvious and reached the summit of the improbability to study what is going on in our reality. This beautifully well -made, exceptional and new film uses the absurd to stage life on earth ”.
Feathers (feathers) Shows a family made up of a true father, authoritarian, but loving and affectionate with her children, a completely erased mother, two little boys and a little baby. Their life is routine. Every day, the dad gives the mother of money and her instructions for the races and the menu. As for her, her days take place between cleaning, cooking, bottle …
One day, to break this routine and please one of the little boys, a birthday party is organized. Everything is going very well until the magician asks the dad to enter a big cake. We close, and when you open, a white chicken had taken the place of the dad. All guests laugh and love this conjugation tour. We close the box, logically, the dad should be back, but it is always the white chicken which is there, the dad having disappeared. Completely. Is chicken reincarnation?
The mother who was almost invisible, whose voice was practically not known, will become overnight family chef. She will have to pay her rent, make her children eat, work…. And of course take care of the chicken.
This threatened woman is struggling against everything and everyone, including those who want her body. She is almost expelled from her apartment for delay in paying the rent. We grab his miserable furniture to force him to pay his debts. At the factory in which the husband worked, he was refused to pay him the pension which due to him, since there is no evidence of the death of this spouse. We also refuse to work in his place, since this factory does not use women …
But she survives, simply because she is a woman and she continues to fight.
One day, we find the husband, who not only has lost his memory, but is more patient, without strength, and it is still up to her to treat him and take care of him.
Demyana Nassar in the role of the mother
Feathers (feathers) is a very special film, with a style of narration in sounds and very special images, which also happens in very particular places and sets, but whose history is universal. Besides, the dusty and dilapidated place where the action and the characters are anonymous in order to underline the fact that it is a story that could occur anytime, anywhere and nowhere.
The director has chosen to place his story in a universe of a terrible darkness. Everything is filthy, polluted … The house is very dirty, all the places where the woman is going to be dirty, the husband worked in a sort of indefinite business, which looks like a black, polluted and polluting mine.
In Featherswe see these poor filled with a spirit of challenge and a desire to live. The director knew how to film them, and knew how to maintain the spontaneity of his actors, however all unprofessional, including the children he was able to direct. He also managed to make the spectator in solidarity with this family, even when the mother flies to feed her children.
“Features started with a very simple idea that I had six years ago. It is the story of a man who turns into chicken and there is serious evidence to confirm it. It is neither a joke nor a conspiracy. Through this parable I wanted to capture part of the difficult life of ordinary Egyptian family.
Faced with this absurd situation, the members of this family react without really thinking. But they are actually blocked. Because they are anti-heroes, no one cares about them or their problems. I feel very close to them and therefore, from the moment the idea of making the film came to me, I became completely obsessed.
I was inspired by many things and I have a deep link with Egyptian culture in particular with its cinematic and musical heritage ” said the young director.
Despite the gravity of the tragedy, and the opposite of the darkness of the images, the soundtrack is joyful and optimistic, thanks to known songs and the music of great composers such as Mohamed Sultan, Baligh Hamdi, Mohamed El Moguy and Hani Shenouda.
Although the film has pleased criticism and cinema professionals, how will it be welcomed by the Egyptian public, who still remains very attached to traditional and commercial cinema?
Charles Tesson & Omar El Zohairy
Omar El Zohairy studied the staging at the Institut Higher Cinema in Cairo, and worked as assistant with several great Egyptian directors, such as Yousry Nasrallah.
His second short film The aftermath of inauguration of the public toilet at kilometer 375 was the first Egyptian film to be selected at the Cinéfondation competition during the 2014 edition of the Cannes Film Festival and subsequently won several awards in various festivals.
Neïla Driss
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