| Amal Ramsis' award-winning documentary Forbidden is a powerful account on the state of Egyptian society before the revolution through to the present day |
| By Randa El Tahawy |
| “What isn't forbidden in Egypt?” is the main question this 67-minute documentary by Amal Ramsis, a young Egyptian director, asks. Filmed on January 1, 2011, less than a month before the protests that toppled President Hosni Mubarak, Forbidden is an interesting documentary describing the state of Egyptian society, particularly its focus on the prohibitions created by the state.By depicting how living in a repressive society under the Mubarak regime has affected the lives of Egyptians, Ramsis succeeds in showing the culmination of the tensions and repressions that led to the January 25 Revolution. In fact, the director says that on her last day of editing, the sweeping wave of protests across the country had begun, which may explain why many have heralded her documentary as prophetic. Through interviews with friends, activists and commentators on various topics such as the ban on filming in the streets, movie censorship, the ban on strikes, the limitations on political groups and even the prohibition of showing affection in public, Forbidden truly shows viewers how difficult life has become in Egypt under a repressive regime that has, ultimately, created a repressive society. The film has already been screened at 25 festivals across the world and won four awards. Ramsis explains that the idea of her self-funded documentary came to her as she began to realize that almost everything was forbidden in Egypt. “Even making a documentary is forbidden,” she says, adding that she never thought her movie would make it out of the censorship office. Among the issues tackled by the documentary is the history of resistance movements that have been taken place since 2004 with Kefaya, the Mahalla Strikes and the Palestinian solidarity movements. “There is political suppression, and it is the state that put us in this state of self-censorship,” Ramsis says, adding that to change the suppressive tendencies that have now sprung up in society will take a significant amount of time and demands serious discussion. The same can be said, the filmmaker says, about the state of the revolution. At the end of the film, Ramsis documents how the people finally toppled the regime, but has recently voiced her desire to rework the ending to indicate that the revolution is still ongoing. “[But] if I had to do the film this year, I would do exactly the same film all over again,” she says. Forbidden is by far one of the most insightful documentaries released since the January 25 Revolution, realistically depicting the climax of events and repressions that led to the massive uprising, and giving a clear understanding on how every aspect of our society has been oppressed for the past decades. |
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