A Glance at Cannes: Cinémas du Monde Pavillon/Cinemas of the World Pavilion - Egyptian Ayten Amin

The Cinémas du Monde Pavillon (The Cinemas of the World Pavilion) created in 2009, is a meeting place within the Cannes Festival for emerging filmmakers to exchange ideas and dialogue within a social and amicable environment.

According to Cannes Festival President Gilles Jacob:

"This initiative is an extension of the objectives of the Festival: to support and assist film creation at its source, well in advance of the selection process. It is thus quite naturally in keeping with our objectives by championing the ideas of the cinema that we cherish. Films move geographical frontiers and mental barriers and constantly reshape a world which is developing faster than we are."

Ayten Amin (Cinémas du Monde)

Egyptian Ayten Amin is among the delegation of twelve directors from India, Africa, South America and Eastern Europe invited to the Cinémas du Monde Pavillon to exchange ideas and dialogue with her colleagues in cinema. Studying filmmaking independently, she made her first short fiction film Her Man in 2006, and also directed several publicity films. Her next film, Spring89 was released in 2009 receiving many national awards. Her current project, "69 Messah Square", is a feature film co-written with Muhammed El Hajj and received the award for the project at the Cairo Film Connection in December 2010.

A Glance at Cannes: A Focus on North Africa

At the Marché du Film at the Cannes Film Festival, in a tribute to the "Arab Spring" in North Africa, Egypt is the Guest of Honor, with a Special Focus on Tunisia.

Screenings will be held of Zelal by Marianne Khoury and Mustapha Hasnaoui (Egypt) and Ni Allah Ni Maître/Neither Allah nor Master by Nadia El Fani (Tunisia).

Synopsis of Films

Zelal by Marianne Khoury and Mustapha Hasnaoui

A journey into the enclosed world of two of Cairo’s mental hospitals, Zelal draws us into the day-to-day life of “ordinary” madmen and women. The film lays bare the shattered humanity of people abandoned without hope, left to stumble about in the backwash of life’s misfortunes. In the process, the viewer confronts his/her own demons, with the disturbing realization that the mentally ill are actually extensions of society’s madness.

Ni Allah Ni Maître by Nadia El Fani

August 2010: Tunisia is in the middle of Ramadan under Ben Ali’s régime. Despite the weight of censorship, Nadia El Fani films a country which seems open to the principle of freedom of conscience and liberal in its relationship to Islam… Three months later, the Tunisian Revolution breaks out, Nadia is out in the field. While the Arab World enters an era of radical change, Tunisia, which initiated the wind of revolt, is once again a “laboratory country” for its outlook on religion. And what if, for once, by the will of the people, a Muslim country opted for a secular constitution? Then, Tunisians would really have made Revolution.