Origin: Unknown | Documentary | Director: Sagui, Eyal | 60 minutes

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Arab Movie

Eyal Sagui Bizawe en Sara Tsifroni - documentary / 2015 / Egypt/Israel - 60
minutes

The movie explores the institution of the Friday afternoon "ceremony" of
watching what was called "Arabic film," i.e. Arabic language movies,
primarily Egyptian cinema, shown on Israel's state television during the
1970s and 1980s. The movie addresses the porous cultural borders, a special
place of Arabic culture in Israel, and perhaps the place of Israel in the
Middle East. Arabic Movie is steeped in multiple layers of affect and
nostalgia -[1] the richly saturated and pining musical emotionalism, the
facial and gestural expression in classical Egyptian cinema, [2] the deep
feeling that registers on the part of the older Israeli viewers who appear
in the film, particularly those who came to Israel from Egypt and other
Arab speaking countries. there is a deep emotion that registers on the
face, on the faces that tear up watching these movies and listening with
their beautiful soundtracks, and [3] then finally upon our feelings as
viewers of the film watching the on-screen viewers watching "Arabic movies"
and thinking of possibilities of contact that break down or get past toxic
cultural stereotypes that determine the barrier set up by the friend/enemy
distinction. Arabic Movie is itself an "Arabic movie," i.e. a primarily
Hebrew-language Egyptian Israeli movie that is itself steeped in the warm
ambience of the original films as they are remembered in the imagination
and then carried forward in their re-watching.
Interview met Eyal Sagui Bizawe:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTlf7KlAQAU

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View trailer