“Men fall apart, but women can’t allow themselves to,” says Fardous, who raised Bassam Mortada, the director of the documentary Abo Zaabal 89 [+leggi anche:
trailer
scheda film], which is being presented in IDFA’s Luminous section after having had its world premiere in the International Critics’ Week Competition of the 45th Cairo Film Festival. The Egyptian filmmaker trains the camera on his parents to tell the story of how political arrests in the 1970s and 1980s had an impact on the lives of both prisoners and their families. It’s a personal narrative with the emotions bubbling just beneath the surface, which makes the film engaging and amplifies the empathic bond with the protagonists. The story is shocking; however, the tone and the atmosphere of the documentary are subdued, reflecting the fact that the terror and anguish experienced by the little child that Bassam Mortada was at the time were wrapped up in denial, repression and all of those defence mechanisms that help us survive. Unfreezing oneself from that state takes time, and there was no pressure to speed up the process or the filming itself, or to put himself at the centre of events.

When the director is in the frame, his presence is subtle: sometimes, he turns his face away from the camera when things get too overwhelming. The composition is also very telling – Mortada is usually standing on the edges of the frame, partially observing the process, partially taking part in it. He reveals more about himself through the voice-over than by talking with either of the parents – also very revealing is an experiment he conducts by recreating a plunge into a bathtub of dirty water, which his father had to endure while incarcerated. Furthermore, the creative sound effects and sonic atmospheres are used to enhance the emotional heart of the story: the feeling of loss, melancholia and living life with a burden.

Mortada gradually reveals the story of his family, interweaving the conversation with his parents into the fabric of facts and dates: the bread riots, the street protests and the arrests of 1989, when his father, Mahmud, and many other socialist activists were imprisoned in the eponymous Abu Zaabal facility. The families were left alone and had to get by somehow – Mortada’s mother is more than vocal about it, speaking out about her anger and disappointment, which did wane over time, however.

The story is complemented by archive footage of events contemporaneous with the arrest, including the dismantling of the Berlin Wall and the Tiananmen Square protest. The experience of living under a dictatorship transcends that of Mubarak’s Egypt, yet this reminder is slightly unnecessary – the story told in Abo Zaabal 89 through intentional composition and editing is universal and strong enough regardless. There is no need to have a traumatic family history in order to engage with this documentary about confronting one’s parents and healing from whatever past we have inherited from them.

Abo Zaabal 89 was produced by Egypt’s See Media Production and Germany’s Seera Film GmbH, with Jyoti Films serving as a co-producer. The world sales rights are up for grabs.