Cinema
Selbé et tant d’autres | الممكنة (Permissible Dreams)
Mon, Jun 20–Mon, Aug 22, 2022
Every Monday
4.30 pm
Free admission
Selbé et tant d’autres (Selbé eine von Vielen)
D: Safi Faye, Senegal 1982), 32 min, Wolof OV with English subtitles
Selbé et tant d’autres was commissioned as part of the series As Women See It, for which eight filmmakers from eight countries (including Atteyat Al-Abnoudy, María Barea, Deepa Dhanraj, and Annabella Miscuglio) produced thirty-minute shorts concerning female experience. Safi Faye, who holds a doctorate in ethnology and was the first woman from sub-Saharan Africa to direct a commercially distributed feature film (Kaddu Beykat, 1975), here depicts the daily life of the eponymous Selbé as she provides for her family while her husband seeks employment elsewhere. As its title suggests, the film is a portrait of a single individual that equally seeks to represent a collective condition.
الأحلام الممكنة (Al-ahlam al-mumkina / Permissible Dreams)
D: Atteyat Al-Abnoudy, Egypt 1983, 31 min, Arabic OV with English subtitles
Al-Ahlam al-Mumkina was commissioned as part of the series As Women See It, for which eight filmmakers from eight countries (including María Barea, Deepa Dhanraj, Safi Faye, and Annabella Miscuglio) produced thirty-minute shorts concerning female experience. This film follows the daily routines of Oum Said, a woman farmer living just north of Suez City in Egypt who can neither read nor write. With Atteyat Al-Abnoudy, a documentarian who became known as “the poor people’s filmmaker” for her focus on economically disadvantaged groups, Said speaks about her life: her children, her displacement during the Six-Day War, her disagreements with her husband, and her belief in the importance of education.