Directed by Namir Abel Messeeh • Documentary • 2011 • 85 minutes
A non-believer born in Egypt and raised in France by his Copt parents, filmmaker Namir Abdel Messeeh has a complicated relationship with his ethnoreligious heritage. THE VIRGIN, THE COPTS AND ME is playful and warm personal account of his attempt to better understand his roots while making his first feature film.
After watching a video said to depict an appearance of the Virgin Mary in the region of his birthplace, Abdel Messeeh decides to head to Egypt to explore the claims of Marian apparitions that have proliferated in the country since the famous apparitions in Zeitoun in the late 1960s. He secures a producer, as well as his mother Siham's blessing-under the condition that he not record her family.
Arriving in Cairo without a plan, Abdel Messeeh finds that his investigation will be more difficult than anticipated. Clerics refuse to speak with him in detail unless authorized by church authorities, and the tension between Muslims and Copts, which lies at the heart of the filmmaker's project, is so acute that most people would rather not speak about it. Unafraid to depict his missteps, Abdel Messeeh appears in these sections as a comedically inept first-time filmmaker even as the polished onscreen result belies that conclusion. THE VIRGIN, THE COPTS AND ME turns Messeeh's personal journey into an intimate, revealing look at a marginalized Middle Eastern community.
"A disarmingly honest, thoroughly winning personal portrait of family and heritage." -Variety
Directed by Safaa Fathy • Documentary • 2000 • 68 minutes
An exploration of the man and his ideas, DERRIDA'S ELSEWHERE investigates the parallels between the personal life and the life work of arguably the most important philosopher of the 20th Century, Jacques Derrida.
The film is woven aroun...
Directed by Kamal Hachkar • Documentary • 2011 • 86 minutes
In TINGHIR-JERUSALEM, filmmaker and historian Kamal Hachkar goes in search of a community that has vanished - and confronts fundamental questions of his own identity in the process. A Berber Muslim born in Tinghir, Morocco and raised in...
Directed by Stefano Savona • Documentary • 2011 • 90 minutes
'Soon after the first reports came about the occupation of Tahrir Square, filmmaker Stefano Savona headed for Cairo, where he stayed, amidst the ever-growing masses in the Square, for weeks. His film introduces us to young Egyptians su...
