During the opening ceremony of the 44th edition of the Cairo International Film Festival (CIFF), which took place on November 13, the Prix of Excellence Faten Hamama was granted to the Egyptian director Kamla Abu Zekry. On stage, it was Nelly Karim, Kamla’s favorite actress who had announced this award.
A few days later, according to the festival tradition, a meeting took place between the award -winning director and the public, in the presence of the Tarek Elshinnawi Moderator critic.
The latter had started with a brief presentation of the director, who had first been the assistant of a very large number of famous directors such as Radwan El Kashif and Nader Galal and who subsequently was able to mark the Egyptian cinema of her own imprint. His latest film was Youm Lel Settat/One day for women In 2016, but since then, each year she has made a television soap opera and each year, success is there. Indeed, its serials are of very high quality and always win several prices. Surely because these soap operas are made from the point of view of the film director she is.
Present at this meeting, actress Elhem Shahine, who shot with Kamla Abu Zekry in the films One-Zero (2009) and One day for women (2016) and in the soap opera Be Tolooa al Rouh/The Ascension of the soul (2022) said: “I find that each episode of Kamla’s soap operas is a film in itself. His latest soap opera Be Toloo al Rouh This is a perfect illustration. Kamla is a director who deserves the qualifier of creator, because Kamla creates, she brings her own work. Kamla is a perfectionist and knows how to direct her actors very well. They trust her because she knows how to get the most out of it. My first film with her was One-Zerothen I produced his film One day for women (opening film of 38th Edition of the CIFF), which to date has won 50 awards in various film festivals. Kamla is an honor for Egyptian cinema ”.
The word was then given to the participants in this meeting so that they could ask their questions to the director.
A film student :: Can you give advice to young people like me to succeed like you?
Kamla Abu Zekry: The advice I give is: study and see the maximum of films around the world. I also advise everyone to take advantage of all possible cinema festivals to see different films that we do not have the opportunity to see in the commercial circuit. Assisting great directors is also very important. It is especially in this way that we learn. But in addition, you have to know how to personalize and visualize what you want to say.
TARAK ELSHINNAWI :: In Kamla’s films, there is always a woman, a heroine woman and a headliner. Even unconsciously, even on TV, Kamla favors the problems of women and heroines.
Kamla Abu Zekry: When I started, I didn’t like feminist cinema. I wanted to talk about society in general, but fate made me deal with problems and questions that concern women. It was not a choice, I really wanted to deal with societal problems that concern us all, for example in Malek wa ketaba/battery or face (2006), the hero is a man. But ultimately, in our countries, a large part of our societal problems concern women, so why not? Yes, okay, I do feminist cinema, but not only!
A participant: I am very happy with these tributes paid by the festival to artists other than the actors, especially that many students participate in these meetings and that professionals have the opportunity to give them advice. For example, how do you manage your actors? Do you have the castings?
Kamla Abu Zekry: First the scenario. I start my work with the scriptwriter, I must first be convinced by history, I must understand it, see it and be certain to be able to send it to the spectator. Then I chat with the actors. We must be able to understand the personality of the various characters. Besides, I make sure to put the actor with a real person, who has for example the same profession or who lived the same situation as the fictitious character. We also do research work, especially if the personality no longer exists of our time. It takes sincerity in the characters. For example, for the soap opera Be Toloo al Rouh/The Ascension of the soulI made Elham Chahine watch around fifty videos on Daeshians so that she permeates it and know how to embody a Daeshian.
The actor Youssef Othman: You have your own world. How do you manage to create it?
Kamla Abu Zekry: preparation, preparation and more preparation…. And then filming. Filming is very easy when everything is well prepared.
The preparation with the scriptwriter, the actors, the technicians, the costumers, the decorators, everything absolutely everything, including the small roles of figuration … Even music begins to be composed before filming. All the details must be studied and ready even before filming begins. For example for the soap opera Segn el-nissaa/Women’s prison (2014), we all spent several whole days in prison, to feel the place, to know it, to understand it and this even before the start of filming.
Tarek Elshinnawi : Often, your technical team is the same. For what ?
Kamla Abu Zekry: In truth, I feel that these people are me, as for the photo director, Nancy Abdel-Fattah. We have the same feeling, we think the same. We complement ourselves. I do not imagine working with another person than Nancy, who is not only a large photo director, but an artist. Of course, I would like to have a new team made up of the new generation, but these people are a plus and I can no longer do without them.
A participant: How do you manage to reconcile your family life and your work?
Kamla Abu Zekry: As I could not be at the same time director and mother, for many years, I worked for a year and I stayed at home for a year, my daughter was young and I wanted to live with her and be a mother. In addition, I did not want to become a machine to make images. I needed this year of leave to make up for my life, because during filming, I don’t think about anything else.
A participant: what did your film critic cinema experience bring you? Did it serve you to work on your scripts?
My father and mother are those who have encouraged me the most. My father works courageously and I hope I learned that from him. My parents helped me so much that I could talk about them without stopping for very long hours.
A participant: How do you do to adapt known novels in successful soap operas?
Kamla Abu Zekry: for the soap opera ZetSonallah Ibrahim, the author, called me to tell me that he is very happy with the result. Screenwriter Mariam Naoum and I really wanted to translate what he meant. Besides, we met him before filming. For this soap opera, each word had a meaning, and before the shooting I had reread everything carefully. For example, I had found a detail that went almost unnoticed: the husband had fractured a leg by changing earthenware. I had asked Mariam Naoum to rework the scenario to give more importance to this detail. When I had given the final scenario to Nelly Karim, I said to him: Here Zet In all its details, everything is already prepared and you have to endorse the personality.
For Wahat al-Ghoroub/The sunset oasis (2017), neither the screenwriter nor I had met the author but I learned that he had been satisfied with the result.
A participant: How do you manage to make your actors play roles which they are not used to?
Kamla Abu Zekry: I find it a challenge for me to have the register actor changed, for example the nice can become the villain, seriousness can become comical. It is a challenge for me and for the actor. It is a bet that can be a winner or not. But in most cases it works. When you give an actor a new role, he makes more effort because for him too it is a challenge. He does not rest on his laurels. Without forgetting the confidence between the actor and me. This confidence, without ego, saves. We have a common goal: to present the character well.
In a film or soap opera, the actor is the most important, he must be sincere. If an actor is bad, the image can be perfect, the staging perfect, but the result will be bad.
I also thank all my actors. I think they all knew how to bring me and realize what I asked or wanted.
Rym Cheker, Tunisian journalist: can Kamla perform a foreign work?
Kamla Abu Zekry: For be Toloo al Rouh/The Ascension of the soulI had in front of and behind the camera of foreigners: Syrians, Iraqi, Palestinians, Tunisians … I loved this experience, we were united for a common goal.
I dream of making a film on Palestine, that its title be Palestineand whether it is a film that says reality, without complacency towards Palestinians or film festivals. My father had a Palestinian flag at home so as not to forget.
An assistant director: what is the scene that was censored to you and that you regret?
Kamla Abu Zekry: in the film Malek wa ketaba/battery or facea scene has been deleted: the husband returns home, finds his wife with a young man in the shower, gets angry and decides to divorce. Censorship deleted the young man to me, and that became ridiculous because a man who returns home and finds his wife alone in the shower does not decide to divorce. It’s illogical. After discussions, censorship ended up agreeing to make me the scene.
In One-Zerothere was an argument in the street, with real dialogues, and I was removed from this scene on the pretext that in reality the Egyptians are not thus. Impossible to hand over these dialogues, which has impoverished the whole scene. Ridiculous, because my scene was well below what we sometimes hear in the Egyptian streets!
Neïla Driss
