Arab Spring: documentarists and film makers 0 Reply

Necati Sönmez is the director of a documentary film festival in Istanbul. After studying aeronautical engineering, he worked as a film critic, photographer, and journalist before starting to shoot and produce documentary films. His debut work, Theo’s Gaze (2003) looked at the work of Greek director Theo Angelopoulos. His award winningTo Make an Example of (2007) explored the reasons behind the death of the hundreds of people executed since the founding of the Turkish republic. Sönmez is founder of DOCUMENTARIST – Istanbul Documentary Days, which presents films from the Arab world, ethnographic documentaries, and films exploring the post-communist era. The festival also raises the issue of human rights in Turkey.

Amal Ramsis, author of Forbidden, repeated what she already said to the press: “This film is not about the Egyptian revolution. The film explores the idea of society as both the inhibitor and facilitator of the forbidden. It handles the contradiction between everything being off limits and people doing what they please”.

Ramsis explained how she got the idea of the movie: “Six months before the revolution, I and many people noticed that everything is forbidden. It has become a big problem. ”

Ramsis interviews several people, ranging from the filmmaker Arab Lotfy to activists such as Nawara Negm to a housekeeper called Sama, who participated in demonstrations. Through the interviews, the audience unravels all that is forbidden, ranging from the participation of women in the community to holding hands with loved ones.