[ad_1]
Report: Marwa Al-Soury
In the documentary “Bab Al-Dunya” directed by Abdel-Rahman Mahmoud, his first directorial experience after working as a sound engineer, the director Abdel Rahman Mahmoud presents to the film a purely personal experience, in which the viewer and the audience live together in a story. The heroes of the story, especially the events are transferred to the picturesque natural scenery of the mountain area of Saint Catherine, but the purpose of the film is to focus on the psychological state experienced by the lost heroes who died from exposure in February 2014. On February 15, 2014, a severe snowstorm caused them to lose their guide, which led to difficulties in finding the way from the summit of “Bab al-Dunya”.
His friend Muhammad Ramadan was also on the trip with seven of his friends, who were caught in a snowstorm while returning from Mount Bab al-Dunya, 2,225 meters above sea level, and three of them died. On the way back, the first person in the group, Khalid, died, and the group subsequently split and dispersed, with Ramadan missing, and his body later found on February 19 in the Jabal al-Arnab area.
This incident is very dramatic, starting with the name of the mountain, “The Gate of the World”. The director did not expect that Ramadan would not come back, he thought that Ramadan would come back to make a film about this incident. After his death, he suffered a huge blow, which led him to seal this incident in a black box. But by coincidence, in 2019, Abdul Rahman came to St. Catherine with a friend. It was his first visit, and from the first moment he found that everyone was talking to him about Ramadan, and they were unaware of their friendship.
The film relies heavily on walking step by step with the protagonist and does not use a lot of boring, repetitive dialogues like documentaries, but is content to use only some fleeting phrases to express the emotional state of the protagonist at the moment. During the walks and meditations around the “Bab al-Dunya” mountain near the city of Saint Catherine in South Sinai, we feel the complete and even exhausting hardship that the director went through, because his sound work was essentially like this. Engineer, used sound effects, as well as some fleeting phrases and audio clips of some people who live in this nature, which can be described as moody nature, sometimes accompanied by its beauty and calm, and sometimes confirming its existence. You know that you are facing moments of uncontrollable anger, it can be easily stopped, especially with the arrival of a blizzard, hiding many secrets, the director only cares about monitoring the difficult situation experienced by the lost people, especially because this film is a case of an elegy film dedicated to the soul of the late director Mohamed Ramadan, who passed away and his body was found in the snow.
As for the aesthetics of the work, it is characterized by the use of black and white photography to express the emotional state of the hero of the story, as well as a good description of the essence of the mountain, with the director paying attention to bringing out the best of the film cadre. The soundtrack by Ahmed Al-Sawy also creates a high positive impact. The film was shot, edited and directed by Abdel Rahman Mahmoud and produced by Hala Al-Qusi, who confirmed in a previous statement that he wanted to turn this work into a long-form work that would leave a deeper impact, but he is now happy to honor this memory, which, although painful, changed many things for him and kept him moving towards the film industry that affected the masses, the hope of pursuing artistic works from all over the world, the elements of joy, passion and excitement that inspired him.
It is noteworthy that the work won the Best Documentary Jury Award at the 2nd Egyptian American Film Festival and the Best Editing Award at the 6th Roa Short Film Festival.Best Documentary Award at the 4th Visual Youth Film Forum hosted by the National Film Center.The third “CEFAL” Film Festival will be held in Palermo, Italy in September next year.
[ad_2]
Source link
