Mamoun invited to join CineGouna panel at Arab cinema festival in Egypt 22 September

We are pleased to announce that Mamoun has been invited to appear at the first El Gouna Film Festival (CineGouna Springboard) in Egypt, as one of the ‘Mentors’.

The challenge of helping Arab filmmakers develop their projects is a daunting, and exciting, challenge over the duration of the festival which takes place from 22nd – 29th September at the exclusive Red Sea resort region of El Gouna.

CineGouna Springboard is a celebration of the rise of Arab Cinema, with the hope that “the interactions of our platform will not only provide financial reward, business and cooperation, bit also creative feedback and insight, with the goal of advancing the visions and aspirations of the film projects themselves.”

For more information, visit the festival website: http://elgounafilmfestival.com/cinegouna-info

Introducing Fritz Lang’s ‘M’ at the NFT

Poster for Fritz Lang’s ‘M’ by Rodolfo Reyes

Mamoun is delighted to have been invited by David Somerset, the education curator of the British Film Institute, to introduce a screening of Fritz Lang’s ‘M’ on 12 September 2.00 pm at NFT3.

Mamoun says,  “It’s a basic truth that where there’s one there’s another. In Germany there were four: George W Pabst,  F W Murnau,  Fritz Lang, Ernst Lubitsch. Four great artists of cinema, who helped both evolve and revolutionise cinema from the silent era onwards. The order is from the oldest to the youngest. In the compelling but silly game of who’s best, I would be influenced by what I saw last. Fritz Lang’s M would certainly  put him first among the firsts.”

Mamoun has written a review entitled  ‘Beauty and the Beast’ for The Times Higher Education Supplement of Patrick McGilligan’s biography of Fritz Lang, The Nature of the Beast:

An introduction to Stray Dog filmed at National Film and Television School

I paid a visit to the National Film Television School in Beaconsfield last week where I introduced Kurosawa’s ‘Stray Dog‘  to students as part of the Screen Arts course led by Dominic Power (pictured left with me). The movie genre is ‘Gendai Geki’ – which means modern (i.e. set in post-1868 Japan). It deals with crime and social issues in post-war Tokyo under American occupation.

In particular I wanted to highlight composer Hayazaka’s  unusual working relationship with Kurosawa and alert the students to how his use of sound contributes to story-telling.   You can watch a film of the introduction here:

Mamoun’s introduction to Stray Dog, 1949, Dir. Akira Kurosawa –   recorded at the National Film and Television School.

Stray Dog, Censorship and the Occupation of Japan (1945 – 1952)

Stray Dog title sequence

In the title sequence of Stray Dog, the opening shot of a dog’s head, open mouthed and panting, is superimposed by the censor’s number as having been approved. It is important to know that the American Censor forbade any reference whatsoever, good or bad, to the Allied Occupation of Japan. I have written about its particular relevance to the film in an article published in The Final Cut –  the Yearbook of the European Film College in 2005. You can read it here.

A while ago Dominic invited me to  introduce Kurosawa’s ‘The Bad Sleep Well‘, another Gendai Geki film, as part of Passport to Cinema – the NFTS joint programme with the National Fim Theatre. (The story has references to Hamlet, played by Toshiro Mifune, and  centres on corporate corruption.)

I’d also like to thank Lee Evans for his video and stills photographic services at the event.