Zawya Ismailia: Bringing film diversity to the canal city

The northeastern canal city Ismailia hosts one of the largest film festivals in Egypt. Since 1991, Ismailia International Film Festival for Documentaries and Shorts has screened local and international works and brought in guests from around the world.

Apart from this annual event, which tends to have busy opening and closing events but is less impactful than it could be due to organizational hiccups, Ismailia doesn’t have much going on in terms of film. With a population of just under half a million, the city is home to 16 cinemas. However, only four are in operation. Eleven are closed, and one has just been demolished, according to 22-year-old Port Said resident Ibrahim Saleh.

But Salah and 28-year-old Asmaa Ghareeb, aided by a dynamic voluntary team of young film enthusiasts, are aiming to change this with Zawya Ismailia. Like the nearby Zawya Port Said, the initiative emerged out of the recent Zawya-run arthouse cinema management workshop at Cairo’s Cimatheque. Ghareeb and Saleh both applied and were selected for the workshop held in Cairo in August. Having not really known what to expect, Saleh and Ghareeb say they found Zawya’s framework both inspiring and flexible.

On returning to Ismailia, they found three very different alternative screening spaces in three parts of the city and decided to launch Zawya Ismailia with a three-day free event. They produced a mini Mohamed Khan retrospective that began on October 14 and ran parallel to similar programs at Zawya in Cairo and Zawya Port Said. Hend and Camellia’s Dreams (1989) was screened at the Ismailia public library’s theater, which is usually attended by young theatergoers. Knight of the City (1992) screened at Nadi al-Rowad, which is patronized by an older crowd that hangs out in the Rowad cafe. The Artful (1983) screened at the Moka’ab co-working space, which is generally frequented by young freelancers.

The events attracted almost as many people as the first screenings in Zawya Cairo in 2014, with an average of 30 viewers per screening. Many attendees I spoke to were connected to the organizers’ friend network. But the project’s success will be measured by longevity more than audience numbers, says Ghareeb. Each screening started with a brief introduction on Zawya and was followed by a discussion on the film. These discussions were not initially led by anyone, but, during the first talk, an audience member specifically asked to listen to Mohamed Houzain, a well-known, local cinephile who was in attendance. Houzain ended up leading the third discussion.

Next, Zawya Ismailia will show three films as part of the annual Panorama of the European Film (November 2 to 12) at Ismailia’s Cinema Donia. Cinema Donia is located in a mall on a commercial street in downtown Ismailia but has its own entrance — a rather grand one. Built in the early 2000s and run by New Century, the cinema is well maintained with comfortable red velvet chairs and good air conditioning. It’s also currently the only cinema in Ismailia to screen foreign films — although, this is restricted to blockbuster US releases — and it is the only one with 3D technology. Its new manager Ismail Ahmed is working closely with the Zawya team to figure out the best means of operation. Ahmed says he wanted to present something different and felt that Zawya could be the perfect opportunity.

The only drawback is that Cinema Donia’s tickets are expensive for Ismailia: Most cinema tickets in the city are LE25, and Cinema Donia is the only one to charge LE30, which may shape people’s perceptions of the project. If some regard Zawya Cairo as unapproachable, it is due to its curatorial trajectory and content rather than its cost.

Zawya’s nascent outside-of-Cairo screens — in Alexandria, Port Said and Ismailia — seem to be working well so far because of the genuinely decentralized management and decision-making approach they have initiated. Decentralization in the arts is usually approached by extending something that already exists, but Zawya requires their branches to be independently managed — only providing screening rights to the films they have access to, technical and curatorial support and print material and marketing designs when needed. The managerial trust gives something different a chance to emerge: not just a Zawya in Ismailia, but a genuinely local arthouse cinema.

The volunteer heritage group Port Said Ala Adeemo is leading Zawya Port Said. Ismailia has an Ismailia Ala Adeemo, operating under the umbrella of Port Said Ala Adeemo. In comparison, it is still small and largely inactive. Saleh hopes to get this group involved in Zawya Ismailia, because having more people on board could be a great help, he says.

In the meantime, Zawya Ismailia will select Panorama films with the Zawya teams in Cairo and Port Said to make sure that no film is screened in both Ismailia and Port Said, meaning that the cities’ inhabitants will have the chance to watch six rather than three films. The two cities are only an hour from each other by car and each has relatively small cultural circles. As the two initiatives are emerging simultaneously, they will be able to feed off of each other’s promotional activities.

All photos by the author.