onilecraM | Marcelino
Cairo
Well today has been a rather busy day. Early this morning John and I headed over to Gold’s gym, which is located in a former papyrus museum on the Nile River. There, we met with a kick boxer named Konga who is interested in being in our film. Konga seems like an outgoing guy, and I think he will work well for the film. In addition to being a kick boxer, Konga is also quite the party animal. Though he doesn’t drink, he’s a known frequenter of all of Cairo’s clubs, so he’ll certainly be able to shed some light in the realm of things.
Afterwards, we headed over to an Italian restaurant near American University of Cairo called Al Dente. For 21 Egyptian pounds (about $3.50 US) we had a bruschetta appetizer, two bowls of pasta, and several rehydrating bottles of water. The food was great - the chef apparently spent 10 years in culinary school in Italy.
After lunch, we headed over to AUC to meet with several people, the first of which was a New Zealand woman named Jan, who teaches in the broadcast journalism/video department. She had some really useful information regarding shooting the doc around Egypt, and even went as far as offering one of her daughters for the documentary. (Her husband is Egyptian, and she’s been living here for quite some time.) In addition, she suggested several other upper class girls who might participate in the doc.
The AUC campus has the feel of any other college campus. It’s kinda empty because it’s the summer, but some students and some younger children enrolled in camp are mulling about. One interesting thing to note - instead of squirrels or birds floating about the campus, there are cats - lots of them. Some huge, others small, of every color variety, just pacing about. Some are really cute, and I’m tempted to bring one home (there’s one kitten in particular that I’m eyeing.
After we spoke with Jan, we were met by Ahmed, one of the potential subjects for the documentary. The best way to physically discribe him is to say that he’s the Arab version of the redhead from Mad Comics, minus the mischievousness. He’s got a very large head adorned by oversized square glasses and his ears exaggeratedly protrude from his head. His academic focus is physics, though he’s an Arabic teacher/tutor in the AUC language institute. He’s also quite a fan of philosophy, and is particularly obsessed with the writings of Einstein. And on top of that, he has a remarkable tendency to go off on tangents about the roots of words, whether they’re in English, Arabic or any other language. I think he contrasts quite nicely (both physically and socially) to Konga - and I think he’ll make a great addition to the film.
We met one last person at AUC, a professor named Abdullah Schlifer, a Muslim convert who formerly served as a Mid-East correspondent for NBC for over twenty years. He’s pretty much covered every war out here (minus the two most recent Gulf Wars) of the last half century. He now teaches broadcast journalism. When we entered his office, he was giving an interview to a student about the Arab-Israeli War of 67. He was explaining how he avoided having his door kicked in and having flash grenades thrown inside his house by just unlocking his doors. When the Israeli army came in, they didn’t use force, just asked him some questions, and moved right along.
When he finally finished her interview, he entertained some questions about our social life documentary, although he wasn’t too interested. John then mentioned another academic documentary project he wanted to pursue while out here, to which he responded more favorably, providing us with some contact information for some people, among them the local foreign press correspondent.
We left AUC and headed over to the Cairo Jazz Club. We met with two of its owners. Ammar and Akhmar, to discuss shooting insider their club. They were both very enthusiastic about us shooting there and in our project in general. We made arrangements to shoot there tonight, as well as Thursday.
- M
