Date:
Location:
The Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology presents a film screening
and discussion with the director of
I Am the People (Je suis le peuple) (2014)
Directed by Anna Roussillon, a French filmmaker raised in Cairo, I Am the People portrays a rural Egyptian community's response to the revolution in Tahrir Square and its political aftermath, from the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak to the fall of Mohamed Morsi. Director Anna Roussillon will attend in person.
Winner of the first John Marshall Award for Contemporary Ethnographic Media at the 2015 Camden International Film Festival
Synopsis: as the Egyptian people rise up in Tahrir Square, a rural community in the Nile valley follows the revolution on TV, radio and in the newspapers. Intimately shot over the three year period from the overthrow of Mubarak to the fall of Morsi, we are shown an alternate view of the revolution through the eyes of Farraj, his family, and friends as they make sense of and debate national politics. Through the experiences and voices of a community in the periphery, I Am the People presents a complex picture of the struggle for democracy in Egypt. For more on the film and to see a preview, click here.
“In this first feature, Anna Roussillon, offers an important counterpoint to the spectacular images captured in Tahrir Square. In January 2011, when ten of thousands of demonstrators took to Cairo’s streets, the director started filming her friend Farraj and his family, peasants in the Luxor Valley. For two years, their television screens allowed them to follow the country’s political upheavals, as it experienced an alternately enthusiastic and painful experiment with democracy. With wit, empathy and a powerful rapport with her subjects, the director makes us feel their hopes and disappointments. A superb lesson in humanity."—Charlotte Selb, RIDM
Anna Roussillon (b. 1980, Lebanon) spent her childhood in Cairo and later moved to France, where she studied Philosophy, Arab culture, and documentary. At present she is working as an Arabist in Lyon, while she is also working on a variety of Egypt-related film projects. Je suis le peuple, her debut, won the major prizes at the Jihlava International Documentary Film Festival and the Belfort International Film Festival EntreVues.
Film screening (111 min.); in Arabic with English subtitles.
Tickets available online and at door of the Brattle Theater. $9 members and students/$11 general public.
Co-sponsors: presented in partnership by The DocYard, the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology at Harvard University, Documentary Educational Resources, and the Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Harvard University.
Contact: Peabody Museum, 617-496-1027; facebook event page.