But, but… we’re told the Brotherhood is “moderate,” and “largely secular,” and that a fresh, new, youthful vanguard of liberal members is challenging that tiny minority of stuffy old “conservatives.” Wishful thinking aside, Ikhwan Cinema was set up by members of the group’s youth wing.
“Brotherhood gets out Muslim message with movies,” by David E. Miller for The Media Line, July 3 (thanks to Weasel Zippers):
A Christian and a Muslim lay injured in an Egyptian hospital room. The Christian, who has just lost an eye in a terrorist attack on his church, turns to his neighbor and asks why Muslims attack Christians.
“What do you mean by Muslims? Can the person who did this really be a Muslim?” answers the other, injured in the same attack.
Deflection of responsibility. The message: stop talking about Muslim attacks on Christians as having anything to do with Islam.
The evident symbolism in the short film “The Eye Does Not See” may seem kitsch to Western viewers, but it exposes a widespread idealistic vision of sectarian relations in post-revolutionary Egypt. At the end of the film, the Muslim patient dies, but donates his cornea to save the vision of his Christian companion.
The new Egypt is far from perfect, but a new Facebook page addresses the country’s social ills through cinema, the Islamic way. With 7,000 fans and growing, “Ikhwan Cinema” embeds short locally-produced films which mirror society’s most pressing issues, attempting to encourage “meaningful film.” Ikhwan Cinema hasn’t yet begun producing films itself, but it intends to begin shortly.
Take corruption for example. The film “It’s Not Enough” displays a civil servant cruelly milking a citizen for a bribe in return for approving a document. But no sooner does he take the payment then a phone call arrives notifying him that his son has been injured. The civil servant rushes to the hospital, but in an act of poetic justice, the hospital clerk refuses to transfer the critically wounded boy to the emergency room unless his corrupt father bribes him.
“That’s not enough,” the clerk tells the weeping father, echoing what the father had just said to the hapless citizen seeking his services.
“Excellent work,” wrote Saad Shehata on the page’s wall. “Hopefully, the Brotherhood will reveal a program to deliver Egypt from its repression.”
Ikhwan [Brotherhood] Cinema isn’t sponsored by the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt’s biggest Islamic movement and a contender for power in upcoming elections. But it was set up and is run by people belonging to its youth wing and it has gotten an official endorsement from the organization.
Its short films grapple with issues as diverse as corruption, sectarian strife, illicit gains and — using classic anti-Semitic imagery — Israeli cruelty towards Arabs. In the film “Soccer Match,” for instance, two stereotypical Jews with ear locks gloat as they witness intra-Arab animosity on the soccer field, with the Israeli national anthem playing in the background.
Ali Khafagy, director of youth affairs in the Giza branch of the Freedom and Justice Party, the Muslim Brotherhood’s new political party, said he loved Egyptian film but could not set foot in an Egyptian cinema.
“I don’t go there because many films have love scenes, which our censorship doesn’t remove,” Khafagy told The Media Line. “I want to see films I can benefit from.”
Khafagy said the Egyptian film industry alienated and provoked many traditional Egyptians like himself, but the new youth initiative gave Egyptian film producers an alternative model for “clean and meaningful film.”[…]
Echoes of North Korea’s turgid Nation and Destiny series.
A new biographical film about the life of Hassan Al-Bana, founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, is an example of the kind of film Khafagy would like to see more of. Filming is to begin shortly, with Syrian actor Rashid Assaf playing the role of Bana. The film is widely viewed as the Brotherhood’s answer to a television series aired last year which critically dealt with Brotherhood history.
Joseph Fahim, a Christian film critic for the English-language Daily News Egypt, said film has been used by dictators as a powerful propaganda tool for decades.
Will the Brotherhood find its Leni Riefenstahl?
“It’s a very smart approach,” Fahim told The Media Line. “[The Brotherhood] wants to align itself with these positive ideals in a time when their message is falling on deaf ears.”…