Mafrouza - Coffret 5 ( Mafrouza - Oh la nuit! / Mafrouza/Coeur / Que faire? / La main du papillon / Paraboles ) ( Mafrouza - Oh Night! / Mafrouza - Heart / Mafrouza - What Is to Be Done? / Mafrouza - The Hand of the Butterfly / Mafrouza - The Art of Speaking )

Mafrouza - Coffret 5 (DVD) (*)

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Original Title: Mafrouza - Oh la nuit! / Mafrouza/Coeur / Que faire? / La main du papillon / Paraboles
Alternate Title: Mafrouza - Oh Night! / Mafrouza - Heart / Mafrouza - What Is to Be Done? / Mafrouza - The Hand of the Butterfly / Mafrouza - The Art of Speaking
Language Selections:
Arabic ( Mono )
English ( Subtitles )
French ( Subtitles )
Spanish ( Subtitles )

Product Origin/Format:
France ( PAL/Region 0 )

Running Time:
746 min

Aspect Ratio:
Fullscreen

Special Features:
Box Set
Interactive Menu
Multi-DVD Set
Posters
Scene Access
Booklet

Movie filmed in 2007 - 2010 and produced in:
Egypt ( Africa, Middle East )
France ( France, Benelux )

Directed By:
Emmanuelle Demoris

Written By:
Emmanuelle Demoris

Actors:
Om Bassiouni ..... Herself
Adel Farrag ..... Himself
Reda Farrag ..... Herself
Abu Hosny ..... Himself
Saber Saidi ..... Singer
Emmanuelle Demoris
Gihad Amin
Adel Farrag
Ghada Farrag
Hassan Stohi
Amir Younan

Synopsis:

***WARNING***Films contain original language audio with English, Spanish & French subtitles***
Mafrouza - Oh Night! (2007)
The first episode of a 5-part film dedicated to the Mafrouza, a shantytown built inside the antique necropolis of Alexandria, shows the first entering in the neighborhood. An archaeological visit leads us to meet a few people, taking the time to be really close to them.

Mafrouza - Heart (2010)
The people of the Mafrouza shantytown in Alexandria daily reconstruct themselves and the world around them, but they also question the camera, who answers them and thus becomes a character in the film.

Mafrouza - What Is to Be Done? (2010)
It's the end of summer in Mafrouza, and we share the sweetness of this season with some of the local residents, in a relationship that has become warm and close. Preparing tea, preaching, messing around, making babies, dancing, singing, swimming.

Mafrouza - The Hand of the Butterfly (2010)
Fourth film in the Mafrouza series. Two events mark the early winter in Mafrouza: the birth of a boy and a young woman's engagement.

Mafrouza - The Art of Speaking (2010)
People of Mafrouza, a shantytown of Alexandria in Egypt, show lucid and strong vitality. Their thoughts and hearts are free in front of Muslim Brothers, who seized their mosque.

***WARNING***Films contain original language audio with English, Spanish & French subtitles***
Mafrouza - Oh Night! (2007)
First episode of Mafrouza, a 5-part film, dedicated to the Mafrouza (a shantytown built inside the antique necropolis of Alexandria), Mafrouza - Oh Night! shows the first entering in the neighborhood. An archaeological visit leads us to meet a few people, taking the time to be really close to them. Each encounter reveals a new novel. And we discover how people survive daily, with an incredible strength for life and a crazy capacity for happiness that enables them to grin and bear the harshness of the materials conditions. This first discovery of the Mafrouza universe is an opportunity to undermine the clichés frequently stated upon this region of the world. But the discovery also leads us to question the way we ourselves live here in Europe (or elsewhere).

Mafrouza - Heart (2010)
July. Heat. The film crew is back again, causing much debate in Mafrouza. In the face of hostility from some, and support from others, the filming continues while the people reconstruct themselves and the world around them. Everything seems to have been destroyed; each person is struggling to rebuild their world. The people of Mafrouza, engaged in this daily task, are aware of the camera crew, sometimes engaging with them. But the filming process plays a role in its own right, and thus becomes an affectionate partner.

Mafrouza - What Is to Be Done? (2010)
It's the end of summer in Mafrouza, a shantytown in Alexandria (Egypt). Preparing tea, preaching, messing around, making babies, dancing, singing, swimming... The camera follows the people of Mafrouza as they patiently reconstruct themselves and the world around them. They show some kind of an incredible strength of life, some kind of a crazy capacity for happiness that enables them to grin and bear the harshness of the material conditions. This may sometimes appear to be pure miracle, but turns the neighborhood into a space of vitality and freedom. What is to be done? Is the third part of the Mafrouza film project that includes 5 installments, shot along two years in the area. Each film can be seen independently.

La main du papillon (2010)
This fourth film in the series follows two events that mark the early winter in Mafrouza: the birth of a boy and a young woman's engagement. Within their homes, we glance at the intimate and the holy, cries, whispers and rituals: individuals' destinies are taking shape. Amidst the familial agitation, each finds their own way to live. Through their actions, but also through what they say, the imaginary reflects on reality, make it livable, and speaks of life, death and gender roles.

Paraboles (2010)
A new ethnographic genre has surfaced in recent years: films (fiction or documentary, there's no difference) about the people living in marginalized neighborhoods about to be destroyed. From In Vanda's Room to Foreign Parts, it has become a common thing that filmmakers would live together with the inhabitants of those places providing them with a voice. The Mafrouza project -of which Paraboles is the fifth and last part- brings along an important difference: the elimination of any sign of picturesque style and condescendence, of social or narrative hierarchy between the filmmaker and his characters. On the contrary, one might say that Demoris learns from Mohamed Khattab -an Egyptian kiosk owner who fights against Islamic fundamentalist for his right to preach in the mosque- and his surroundings. And so he shows us a certain civil urbanism, some secular and cosmopolitan ways of coexisting apart from political or religious bureaucracies. And he celebrates it in a happy and secretly optimistic film, which gains a visionary quality with the recent demands for freedom, justice, and democracy in the Arab world provide. Once again, cinema goes ahead of history.

***WARNING***Films contain original language audio with English, Spanish & French subtitles***
Mafrouza - Oh Night! (2007)
The first episode of a 5-part film dedicated to the Mafrouza, a shantytown built inside the antique necropolis of Alexandria, shows the first entering in the neighborhood. An archaeological visit leads us to meet a few people, taking the time to be really close to them. Each encounter reveals a new novel, full of life and a crazy capacity for happiness that enables them to grin and bear the harshness of the materials conditions. This first discovery of the Mafrouza universe is an opportunity to undermine the clichés frequently stated upon this region of the world.

Mafrouza - Heart (2010)
The people of the Mafrouza shantytown in Alexandria daily reconstruct themselves and the world around them, but they also question the camera, who answers them and thus becomes a character in the film.

Mafrouza - What Is to Be Done? (2010)
It's the end of summer in Mafrouza, and we share the sweetness of this season with some of the local residents, in a relationship that has become warm and close. Preparing tea, preaching, messing around, making babies, dancing, singing, swimming. Every day, each individual creates their own path to a strange joy of life, composed of ardour, trance and interiority. Even when this may sometimes appear to be pure miracle, their whole experience of live turns the neighborhood into a space of vitality and freedom.

Mafrouza - The Hand of the Butterfly (2010)
Fourth film in the Mafrouza series. Two events mark the early winter in Mafrouza: the birth of a boy and a young woman's engagement. Within their homes, the intimate and the holy, cries, whispers and rituals: individuals' destinies are taking shape. Amidst the familial agitation, each finds their own way to live. Through their actions, but also through what they say, summoning the imaginary to reflect on reality, make it livable, and speaking of life, death and gender roles.

Mafrouza - The Art of Speaking (2010)
People of Mafrouza, a shantytown of Alexandria in Egypt, show lucid and strong vitality. Their thoughts and hearts are free in front of Muslim Brothers, who seized their mosque. In the center, Mohamed Khattab, grocer and sheik of the neighborhood, is resisting with irony or gravity, explaining his 'strategy', his rage and his intention to . Later, he will be the one who will express complicity and tenderness for the camera, because it's time of separation after these two years of shooting in the neighborhood. The Art of Telling is the last part of the Mafrouza film project that includes 5 installments, shot along two years in the area. Each film can be seen independently.

This product was added to our catalog on Saturday 15 September, 2012.