As part of the Women’s Film Festival in Palestine, a workshop was organized at the Zafer Al Masri Auditorium at the University. The workshop included a joint lecture and screening of some film clips entitled 'Arab Women Filmmakers…Themes and Motifs'.
The workshop started with Rebecca Hillauer, talking about herself and how her interest in Arab filmmakers developed while she lived in Egypt. She also mentioned that she is working on an encyclopedia of Arab Women filmmakers which introduces the reader to the history of Arab women’s filmmaking from its beginning in the era of the Egyptian silent movies until today, from Iraq to Morocco. The encyclopedia explains the political and social background of different Arab countries, before introducing the filmmakers themselves as well as their biographies and filmographies. She also emphasized that these filmmakers and the female characters in their films are usually women who do not conform to common cliché conceptions of Arab women.
Following this introduction, she talked to the audience about some famous female Arab directors and talked about their methods, ideas and the stories behind their films. Many of these films try to show the reality of the status of women in the Arab World and the difficulties women face in order to achieve their ambitions. She also talked about the difficulties faced by these directors whether in finding suitable producers or in dealing with criticism from traditional society.
Six clips were screened for six different Arab directors of various nationalities. The films and directors were: Leila wadh-dhiab (Leila and the Wolves) by Lebanese Director Heiny Srour, Sama (The Trace) by Tunisian Director Neija Ben Mabrouk, Maarek Hob (Love Battles) by Lebanese Director Danielle Arbid, As-Sitar al-ahmar (Red cover) by Tunisian Director Raja Amari, Al-Amal al-ghamed (Mesterious Hope) by Palestinian director Norma Marcos and Fatima Amaria by Algerian director Nadia Cherabi.
At the end of the workshop the audience, who were mostly journalism students, discussed women's film directing with Hillauer. Most students expressed their happiness to meet a western journalist so attached to Arabic culture and issues and thanked the university and the administration of Shashat for organizing the festival.
* Rebecca Hillauer is a German writer and journalist. She studied social work and sociology and worked several years in the field of bilateral development in Egypt. During this time she traveled extensively through Arab countries. In 1995, she co-organized two film weeks with films directed by Arab women in Berlin. Her book 'Free Spaces – lives, dreams' is a reference work on Arab women filmmakers and was published in German in 2001. An updated English translation will be published in December 2005 by American University Cairo Press. Rebecca Hillauer presently lives as journalist for printed media and radio in Berlin.