Session of the Anti-imperialist Camp
Assisi, Italy, August 23-26, 2012
Saturday, August 25, 9pm
Cinema: Forbidden (67min, Arabic with English captions)
Subsequently debate with the director Amal Ramsis
Egypt between military, Islamists and Tahrir
“Forbidden” (2011) is the fourth film of Amal Ramsis, after “In Beirut there is still the sea” (1999), “Only dreams” (2005), “One life” (2008).
The film is a historic document about the months right before the uprising of January 25 in Egypt. It shows the bans suffered by the citizens under the Mubarak regime as well as the accumulating anger which eventually led to the popular eruption. The protagonists of the film are political activists like Arab Lotfi (film director), Salma Shokralla (journalist) or Mohamed Waked (leading member of the National Front and the Revolutionary Socialists).
When Amal Ramsis started the shooting in autumn 2010 she did not even dream of that that the fall of Mubarak would mark the end of the film. “Forbidden” displays the sentiment which was ruling Egypt before the popular uprising. It plays with the word “forbidden” and its interpretation in the political and social day-to-day life along the Nile. A creative idea turned unexpectedly into a documentation of erupting rage paving the way to January 25. Many questions asked by the film have been answered by the people o that very day.
The premiere of the film was celebrated at the International Documentary Film Festival in Madrid as well as at more than 30 festivals in the Arab world, Europe and South Africa.
Prices won by “Forbidden”
• Prize of the audience for the best feature documentary film in Drac Magic International Women Film Festival of Barcelona (Spain, May, 2011)
• Prize of the best film in the Arab Film Festival of Rotterdam (Netherlands, September, 2011)
• Prize of the best film for Human Rights in the Festival International de Cine Invisible de Bilbao, (Spain, September, 2011)
• Prize of the best film in the Festival of Political Cinema realized by Women of Madrid (Spain, December 2011)
• Prize of the Best Documentary Film in the Festival International de Cine Pobre (Cuba, April, 2012)
Amal Ramsis is the organiser of the Egyptian-Spanish film festival entrecineastas
