Marina of the Zabbaleen

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Marina of the Zabbaleen

Marina-of-the-zabbaleen.jpg

Theatrical release poster
Directed by Engi Wassef
Produced by Engi Wassef
Written by Engi Wassef
Music by Michiel Neuman
Cinematography Rob Hauer
Edited by Nicholas Martin
Release date
  • April 2008 (2008-04)(Tribeca Film Festival)
Running time
70 minutes
Language Arabic, English

Marina of the Zabbaleen is a 2008 documentary film written and directed by Engi Wassef that examines the life of Marina, a 7-year-old Egyptian girl living in a Zabbaleen garbage-collecting village in Cairo. The film debuted at the 2008 Tribeca Film Festival with sold-out screenings. The film piqued the interest of many movie goers with its poignant tagline, "Garbage and God are the only options: plight of Christians peasants in Cairo." [1]

Documentary film nonfictional motion picture

A documentary film is a nonfictional motion picture intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education, or maintaining a historical record. "Documentary" has been described as a "filmmaking practice, a cinematic tradition, and mode of audience reception" that is continually evolving and is without clear boundaries. Documentary films were originally called 'actuality' films and were only a minute or less in length. Over time documentaries have evolved to be longer in length and to include more categories, such as educational, observational, and even 'docufiction'. Documentaries are also educational and often used in schools to teach various principles. Social media platforms such as YouTube, have allowed documentary films to improve the ways the films are distributed and able to educate and broaden the reach of people who receive the information.

Egypt Country spanning North Africa and Southwest Asia

Egypt, officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia by a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. Egypt is a Mediterranean country bordered by the Gaza Strip and Israel to the northeast, the Gulf of Aqaba and the Red Sea to the east, Sudan to the south, and Libya to the west. Across the Gulf of Aqaba lies Jordan, across the Red Sea lies Saudi Arabia, and across the Mediterranean lie Greece, Turkey and Cyprus, although none share a land border with Egypt.

Zabbaleen

The Zabbaleen is a word which literally means "garbage people" in Egyptian Arabic. The contemporary use of the word in Egyptian Arabic is to mean "garbage collectors". In cultural contexts, the word refers to teenagers and adults who have served as Cairo's informal garbage collectors since approximately the 1940s. The Zabbaleen are also known as Zarraba, which means "pig-pen operators." The word Zabbalīn came from the Egyptian Arabic word zebāla which means "garbage".

Contents

Synopsis

The film is set in the Moqattam village, on the outskirts of Cairo, where Coptic Christians from rural Upper Egypt make their living as garbage collectors and recyclers. Moqattam is a toxic shantytown where mountains of trash stand in filthy contrast to the nearby Great Pyramids. Here, the impoverished but industrious locals earn their living by bundling and reselling paper, and raising pigs amidst the rotting refuse. Very few of the youngsters raised ever receive a proper education.

Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria major transnational Oriental Orthodox church led by the Patriarch of Alexandria on the Holy See of St. Mark

The Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria is an Oriental Orthodox Christian church based in Egypt, Africa and the Middle East. The head of the Church and the See of Alexandria is the Patriarch of Alexandria on the Holy See of Saint Mark, who also carries the title of Coptic Pope. The See of Alexandria is titular, and today the Coptic Pope presides from Saint Mark's Coptic Orthodox Cathedral in the Abbassia District in Cairo. The church follows the Alexandrian Rite for its liturgy, prayer and devotional patrimony. With 20–25 million members worldwide, whereof about 18 to 22 million are in Egypt, it is the country's largest Christian church.

The film transforms the gritty landfill Zabbaleen village (known locally as "Garbage City"), one of the very few Coptic Christian communities in a mostly Muslim-populated Cairo, [2] into a beautiful, dreamlike portrait of family, childhood, and spirituality.

The film introduces us to the intricate world of seven-year-old Marina, the middle child in a family of five, a girl who, despite the decaying ghetto she lives in, spends her days riding flying elephants and befriending mystical pigeons. She dreams of becoming a doctor.

Making of the film

Wassef was granted an unprecedented degree access to the normally very isolated and secretive city, filming everything from its trash-strewn streets to its immaculate churches that have been pridefully carved into the surrounding sacred mountains by the locals. She attributed this to the trust she had built with the local people, aided, perhaps, by the fact that like the Zabbaleen, she too is a Coptic Christian of Egyptian background. With time, the people of Moqattam become comfortable enough with her and her camera to allow her to film honest, complete views of their typical daily lives. [1]

Reception

Banned in Egypt, Marina of the Zabbaleen premiered in April 2008 at the Tribeca Film Festival. The film was hailed as a gorgeous and "painterly" account of the troubled daily life of an obscure but revealing Middle Eastern people.

Tribeca Film Festival annual film festival held in New York, USA

The Tribeca Film Festival (TFF) is a prominent film festival held in the Tribeca neighborhood of Manhattan, showcasing a diverse selection of independent films. Since its inaugural year in 2002, it has become a recognized outlet for independent filmmakers in all genres to release their work to a broad audience.

It was an official selection for the following festivals in 2008-2009:

Dubai International Film Festival UAE, founded 2004

The Dubai International Film Festival (DIFF) is the leading film festival in the region. The 12th edition of DIFF took place from December 9 – 16, 2015. In 2018, the DIFF announced it will take place every two years, with the 15th edition confirmed for 2019.

Awards

Sources

See also

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