FILMS

Every day at 5 p.m. in the Seminar room, movies and lectures of interest to the bellydance community will be screened. Admission free to Conference registrants.

Titles

Rakasa

Umm Kulthum, A Voice Like Egypt

Thursday April 24th

Israel, 2006 | Doc, 73 min.
Director: Iris Rubin 
 

Synopsis:

These women live with the glory of being a dancer and the applause of the audience all the while struggling against the acute objection to their profession. 

They must often deal with contemptible treatment all because theirs is deemed an inappropriate profession for a respectable and honest woman.

As if taken from Arabian Nights, the film presents, image upon image, the lives of these women who are fighting for the simplest and yet most profound happiness — for the freedom that they find in dance.

It reveals a colorful world, full of poetry and rhythm; a sensual and fantastically feminine environment.  

And from within this world emerges a statement at once overtly feminist, charming and complex.

The three women that the film follows are Palestinians Chatib, Orit Maftzir and Tina Gadish.

Original Language: Hebrew and Arabic
Subtitles: English

Saturday April 26th & Sunday April 27th

1996, Doc. 67 min.
Director: Michal Goldman
 

"Umm Kulthum grows more revealing as it proceeds, helped enormously by the rich legacy of films and recordings." — The New York Times

"The voice of Umm Kulthum lives on in Goldman's film." — The Boston Herald

Synopsis:

She had the musicality of Ella Fitzgerald, the public presence of Eleanor Roosevelt and the audience of Elvis Presley.

Born a peasant at the turn of the last century, legendary Egyptian singer Umm Kulthum earned a position of great wealth and influence.

She was a powerful symbol, first of the aspirations of her country, and then of the entire Arab world.

Four million people filled the streets of Cairo for her funeral in 1975, and to this day her songs

outsell those of many contemporary Arab female vocalists. 

Narrated by Omar Sharif, Umm Kulthum, A Voice Like Egypt takes viewers into her home village and to the streets and cafes of Cairo where she lived and worked. Featuring concert footage, film clips and interviews with the famed singer’s friends and colleagues, Goldman's documentary places the life and career of Umm Kulthum in the context of the epic story of 20th century Egypt.

Language:
English and Arabic with English subtitles