Pioneering Lebanese director Jocelyne Saab is best known for her films about the Lebanese civil war and Palestinian resistance, but she turned her camera to many subjects beyond her native Lebanon – most notably in Egypt, Western Sahara, Iran and Vietnam – where her distinct style of filmmaking – inquisitive, personal, playful – enabled poetic portraits at the same time as producing unique, often atypical, historical documents.  

Jocelyne Saab first went to Egypt in 1973 to cover the October war for French television. She remained in close contact with the many left-wing activists she met at that time, and returned to Cairo in 1977, soon after the January “bread riots”. In Egypt, City of the Dead, her discerning reflection on Egyptian president Sadat’s policy of liberalisation (infitah) and the resulting impoverishment of Egyptian citizens caused the film to be censored in Egypt, while Saab was banned from entering the country for 7 years.  

When she eventually was able to return to Egypt in 1986, she did so from Paris, where she had exiled herself to, after the destruction of her own home in the Lebanese civil war. She was curious about how Egyptian society was changing, how tradition echoed into the everyday. The films she made at this time – The Ghosts of Alexandria, The Cross of the Pharaohs, The Architect of Luxor and The Rise of Fundamentalism – were gathered under the title “Egypt ? Egypts…” as if different facets of the same portrait. 

Made three years later, in 1989, Al’Alma’, Belly Dancers continues the same line of reflection and positions culture as a potent tool of resistance, particularly against the rise of Islamic fundamentalism.  

This programme of six films made by Saab in Egypt between 1977 and 1989 offers a slant insight into the evolution of Saab’s political perspectives over time, and a novel understanding of her enduring commitment to justice and freedom. These new restorations are presented for the first time at Open City.

Curated by Elhum Shakerifar and Mathilde Rouxel.