Viola Shafik

Last updated
Viola Shafik
ڤيولا شفيق
Born(1961-07-24)July 24, 1961
Schönaich, Baden-Württemberg, Germany
Nationality Egyptian and German
Alma materAcademy of Fine Arts, Stuttgart, University of Hamburg
Occupation(s)film theorist, film curator, filmmaker
Years active1994 – present

Viola Shafik is an Egyptian-German film theorist, curator, and filmmaker.

Contents

Early life and career

Shafik was born in Schönaich, Germany, to an Egyptian father and a German mother. She studied Fine Arts at the Stuttgart Academy of Fine Arts as well as Middle Eastern studies and German literature at the University of Hamburg, finishing with her Ph.D. in 1994. Her dissertation, Arab Cinema: History and Cultural Identity, was published in English in 1998 by American University in Cairo Press. [1]

Shafik lived in New York in 1996 with support by a grant from the Rockefeller Humanities Foundation. [2] Shafik has taught at the American University in Cairo and Zürich University. [3] Further, she also worked as consultant for training initiatives La Biennale di Venezia, the al-Rawi Screenwriters Lab in Jordan, and the Dubai Film Connection. She also has curated film festivals [4] and is member of the board of the World Cinema Fund of the Berlin International Film Festival. [1] Also, Shafik has worked as translator for German television. [2]

In the academic year 2006/07, she was a Fellow at the Berlin Institute for Advanced Study. [5] From 2012 to 2014, she served as Head of Studies for the MENA (Middle East and North Africa region) Programme of Documentary Campus, a German programme focused on directing and producing documentary films in Middle Eastern and North African countries. [6] In 2022, she was a member of the independent jury of Jordanian and Arab filmmakers for the Jordan Film Fund, awarding grants to film and TV projects of Jordanian filmmakers. [7]

Arab Cinema: History and Cultural Identity

Shafik based this 1998 book in English on her Ph.D. thesis, focusing on Arab cinema, both in the Arab world as well as presented in Germany. She discussed the artistic, political, historical and economic aspects of cinema and movie production in the Arab world. It was the first book in English about both the content and the forms of Arab cinema and was revised for a new edition in 2007. A review for Egypt Today magazine called it "a rich, multilayered (albeit academic) study," noting that "the inclusion of films from all over the Arab world is perhaps the book's greatest accomplishment, with large sections covering the often marginalized films of Algeria, Tunisia, and Morocco." [8]

Films

Shafik's 1993 documentary The Lemon Tree reflects the pessimistic mood of the era immediately following the Middle East's Second Gulf War in the early 1990s. Shafik adapted a short story by poet and former Arab League ambassador Ibrahim Shokrallah, which in turn is based on events in his own life. [9] The film won the award for Best Short Documentary at Images of the Arab World Festival 1993. [10]

Her 2011 film Ali im Paradies (My name is not Ali) is a documentary about the actor El Hedi ben Salem, who played the title role in Rainer Werner Fassbinder's Angst essen Seele auf (Ali: Fear eats the soul). For this, she used interviews with Salem's family and material from film archives, showing the actor and director, as well as other artists from the original film. Central themes of this documentary are racism, same-sex relationships and othering in Germany. [11] A review in Variety magazine said it will "intrigue the many arthouse types" still interested in Fassbinder's films and life, [12] but in The Hollywood Reporter, it received a rather negative review. [13]

Shafik's documentary Arij/Scent of Revolution premiered at the 2014 Berlin Film Festival. It features four Egyptian protagonists, a collector of photo negatives, a Coptic political activist, an older socialist writer and a young cyberspace designer, who share their perspective on Egypt's problems, both in relation to earlier and to Egypt's revolution in 2011. The review in Variety criticized an unconvincing connection between the individual parts and quoted Shafik as saying, "This is not the film I wanted to make." [14]

Selected filmography

Works

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Arab world</span> Geographical and cultural region in Africa and the Middle East

The Arab world, formally the Arab homeland, also known as the Arab nation, the Arabsphere, or the Arab states, comprises a large group of countries, mainly located in Western Asia and Northern Africa. While the majority of people in the Arab world are ethnically Arab, there are also significant populations of other ethnic groups such as Berbers, Kurds, Somalis and Nubians, among other groups. Arabic is used as the lingua franca throughout the Arab world.

<i>Ali: Fear Eats the Soul</i> 1974 film

Ali: Fear Eats the Soul is a 1974 West German drama film written and directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder, starring Brigitte Mira and El Hedi ben Salem. The film won the International Federation of Film Critics award for best in-competition movie and the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury at the 1974 Cannes Film Festival. It is considered to be one of Fassbinder's most powerful works and is hailed by many as a masterpiece.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cairo International Film Festival</span> Annual international film festival held in Cairo, Egypt

The Cairo International Film Festival is an annual internationally accredited film festival held in Cairo Opera House. It was established in 1976 and has taken place every year since its inception, except for 2011 and 2013, when it was cancelled due to budget limitations and political instability. It is the only international competitive feature film festival recognized by the FIAPF in the Arab world and Africa, as well as the oldest in this category.

Middle Eastern cinema collectively refers to the film industries of West Asia and part of North Africa. By definition, it encompasses the film industries of Egypt, Iran, Bahrain, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Palestine, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, United Arab Emirates, and Yemen. As such, the film industries of these countries are also part of the cinema of Asia, or in the case of Egypt, Africa.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cinema of Egypt</span> Filmmaking in Egypt

The Cinema of Egypt refers to the flourishing film industry based in Cairo, sometimes also referred to as Hollywood of the East or Hollywood on the Nile. Since 1976, the capital has held the annual Cairo International Film Festival, which has been accredited by the FIAPF. There are an additional 12 festivals. Of the more than 4,000 short and feature-length films made in MENA region since 1908, more than three-quarters were Egyptian films. Egyptian films are typically spoken in the Egyptian Arabic dialect.

Arab cinema or Arabic cinema refers to the film industry of the Arab world. Most productions are from the Egyptian cinema.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cinema of Lebanon</span> Filmmaking in Lebanon

The cinema of Lebanon, according to film critic and historian Roy Armes, is the only other cinema in the Arabic-speaking region, beside Egypt's, that could amount to a national cinema. Cinema in Lebanon has been in existence since the 1920s, and the country has produced more than 500 films.

El Hedi ben Salem was a Moroccan actor, best known for his work with film director Rainer Werner Fassbinder.

<i>The Night of Counting the Years</i> 1969 Egyptian film

The Night of Counting the Years, also released in Egypt as The Mummy (Elmomya) (المومياء), is a 1969 Egyptian film and the only feature film directed by Shadi Abdel Salam. It features Nadia Lutfi in special appearance. It is the 3rd on the list of Top 100 Egyptian films. The film was produced by Roberto Rossellini for General Egyptian Cinema Organisation. Rossellini was instrumental in encouraging Abdel Salam to make the film, The Night of the Changing Years tells a story set among the grave robbers of Kurna in Upper Egypt..

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Daoud Abdel Sayed</span> Egyptian director and screenwriter

Daoud Abdel Sayed is an Egyptian director and screenwriter. He was born in Cairo in 1946. He started as the assistant of Youssef Chahine in The Land. He made several critically acclaimed films, and won several international awards notably for The Land of Fear which was produced in 1999.

Tamer El Said is an Egyptian filmmaker. He wrote, produced and directed numerous films including Take Me (2004), an award-winning documentary about five friends who unwittingly became political prisoners in Morocco, and the short film On a Monday (2005) on an old married couple who rediscover their relationship. His first fiction feature In the Last Days of the City was shot in Cairo, Berlin, Baghdad and Beirut and premiered in 2016 at the Berlin International Film Festival. He is co-founder of several independent initiatives in Cairo, including Cimatheque Alternative Film Centre, Mosireen, and Zero Production.

Néjia Ben Mabrouk is a Tunisian screenwriter and director, known for her work on the award-winning film Sama and on the documentary The Gulf War... What Next?.

<i>Sama</i> (film) 1988 Tunisian film

Sama is a 1988 Tunisian feature film directed by Néjia Ben Mabrouk. It is the first fictional feature film directed by a woman that was released in Tunisia. The film deals with themes of gender and education.

A growing number of film festivals are held in the Arab world to showcase films from the region as well as international standouts. In addition, institutions and organizations in other parts of the world are increasingly honoring the new generation of filmmakers in the Arab world with Arab film festivals.

Najwa Najjar is a film writer and director. She was born to a Jordanian father and Palestinian mother. She began her career making commercials and has worked in both documentary and fiction since 1999.

Khairiya Al Mansour is an Iraqi filmmaker and director. Born March 28, 1958, in Baghdad, Khairiya studied there from 1976 to 1980 at the Academy of Arts, and in Cairo at the Higher Film Institute in 1987. She is the first Iraqi woman who worked as a cinema director. She was an assistant director to well-known Iraqi and Egyptian directors such as Salah Abu Seif, Tewfik Saleh, and Youssef Chahine. She herself has made around forty documentary films for the Iraqi ministry of culture and for private producers. She has also directed two full-length films. When the international embargo against Iraq brought about the collapse of the film industry there, she started working for Iraqi and Jordanian television. She divides her time between Baghdad and Cairo.

Eliane Raheb is a documentary filmmaker and director from Lebanon. She made her debut as a director with her 2012 film, Layali Bala Noom.

Ghadat al-sahara is a 1929 Egyptian silent film starring Mary Queeny in her debut role in anddi to Assia Dagher. It is directed by Wedad Orfi. It is also the first production of the actress and filmmaker Assia Dagher.

Ateyyat El Abnoudy, also known as Ateyyat Awad Mahmoud Khalil, was an Egyptian journalist, lawyer, actress, producer, and movie director. She was born in a small village along the Nile Delta in Egypt. El-Abnoudy was considered to be one of the pioneering Arab female movie directors as her films inspired the works of many Arab women in the industry. She has been called the "poor people's filmmaker" due to the subject matter that inspired her to make films, including civil rights issues and the condition of impoverished Arabs.

Ali Badrakhan is an Egyptian film director and screenwriter, the son of the director Ahmed Badrakhan. He worked as assistant to Fatin Abdel Wahab in Land of Hypocrisy in 1968, and with Youssef Chahine in the films Selection in 1971 and The Sparrow in 1974; his first movie was The Love That Was (1973) by Soad Hosny. Badrakhan collaborated with Naguib Mahfouz, Salah Jahin, and Ahmed Zaki.

References

  1. 1 2 "Viola Shafik | filmportal.de". www.filmportal.de. Retrieved 2022-10-14.
  2. 1 2 Hillauer, Rebecca (2005). Encyclopedia of Arab women filmmakers. Cairo, Egypt: American University in Cairo Press. p. 109. ISBN   9789774162688 . Retrieved 24 December 2015.
  3. ↑ "VIOLA SHAFIK". Werkstatt Der Kulturen. Archived from the original on 29 July 2019. Retrieved 24 December 2015.
  4. ↑ "Rawi Consultants". The Royal Film Commission Jordan. RFC. Archived from the original on 24 September 2015. Retrieved 27 December 2015.
  5. ↑ "Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin: Viola Shafik, Dr. phil". Viola Shafik, Dr. phil. Retrieved 2022-10-14.
  6. ↑ "The MENA Programme". www.documentary-campus.com. Retrieved 27 December 2015.
  7. ↑ "The Royal Film Commission Jordan | The Jordan Film Fund Announces Grants to 15 Projects in its Seventh Cycle". www.film.jo. Retrieved 2022-10-14.
  8. ↑ "Shafik, Viola 1961- | Encyclopedia.com". www.encyclopedia.com. Retrieved 2022-10-14.
  9. ↑ "Arab Film Distribution: Home Page - Films, Videos, and DVDs from the Arab World, Middle East, and North Africa". www.arabfilm.com. Retrieved 2022-10-17.
  10. ↑ Rudnicka-Kassem, Dorota (2009). "Arab Cinema: History and Cultural Identity". Hemispheres. No. 24. Wroclaw. pp. 169–171. ProQuest   956815293.
  11. ↑ "Ali im Paradies | filmportal.de". www.filmportal.de. Retrieved 2022-10-15.
  12. ↑ Harvey, Dennis (2012-09-03). "My Name Is Not Ali". Variety. Retrieved 2022-10-16.
  13. ↑ T. H. R. Staff (2012-08-29). "My Name Is Not Ali (Jannat' Ali): Film Review". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved 2022-10-16.
  14. ↑ Weissberg, Jay (2014-02-25). "Film Review: 'Scent of Revolution'". Variety. Retrieved 2022-10-17.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.