The Revolution Has Been Filmed: Talking with Marco Wilms and Ganzeer about the documentary ART WAR

street artist Ganzeer (left) and director Marco Wilms (right) 

The documentary ART WARS made a recent appearance at the KINO Festival of German Films in New York City. Focusing on the explosion of street art that arose in Cairo during the 2011-2012 protests against then president Hosni Mubarak, it’s a film that was resonant and will continue to be so with various audiences for several reasons. Most prominently, it captures a vibrant graffiti scene, a modern form of artistic and social expression that has leveled playing fields and made for captivating exchanges of ideas from Five Points in Queens, New York to the Kaka’ako in Honolulu, Hawaii. Behind the images though is a firsthand account of the use of art, not only visual but across several mediums, to affect genuine change in the middle of a people’s upheaval. Those interested in a first hand account of revolution in action, as opposed to a distanced look back, will be fascinated too. 

In speaking with the film’s Berlin-based filmmaker Marco Wilms and one of its main protagonists, street artist Ganzeer, the world weary pair needed little prompting to get right into the thick of the documentary. Topics included an instance of street art being used to bring a murderer to justice, filming in the midst of turbulent riots, and the use of humor to criticize those in power throughout Egypt’s history.  

---------------------------------------

MondoCurry: How did you initially get into the the graffiti activity in Egypt? 

Marco Wilms: When I saw the pictures on TV in 2011, I was very impressed. I went through my own revolution back in 1989 in East Germany with the fall of the Berlin Wall. I thought it would be great to be part of next big movement in human history. I went to Tahrir Square to work on a script. But I never wrote a script, I just immediately began to shoot. Didn’t know it would take 2 and a half years at that moment. I didn’t have an exact idea, I just followed instinct and  what was exciting for me. I came to a point where I found this explosion of creativity among people. Actually, at the beginning they called the revolution in Egypt the ‘Laughing Revolution.’ Then it became completely the opposite. At that time, there were many people with funny signs and puppets. I followed the creativity. There were huge paintings on the street of pictures of donkeys as police officers and other things that were funny and disrespectful to the regime. Then, I think I saw a lot of graffiti in Tahrir Square. Then I met one graffiti artist after another, by accident actually. I think you knew Anwar before, didn't you?

Ganzeer: When you first started filming him, we did not know each other. I remember walking down the streets and seeing then seeing the graffiti for WANTED, for the search for the police sniper. And I remember thinking this is amazing! The first things to appear in Cairo were WANTED and then the guys with eye bandages. Before these two things, nobody else was doing graffiti. I was the only person doing any street art. So I saw these two things and was like ‘who is doing this?’  And later I came to meet Anwar and understood .

MC: This was a very powerful part of the film...

MW: It was very interesting to see how graffiti artist used graffiti to bring about justice. There was a police sniper who shot the eyes of people. One guy was filming it with a mobile phone. I think he was a hidden friend of the police. He said he was an actor but I’m not sure if it was true.

G: Yes, and the regime pulled some images of him from Facebook where he was wearing a police uniform for acting on a TV show. They said  ‘you’re impersonating a police officer. That’s a crime. And they charged him with ridiculous crimes.

MW: That’s why he called me. My friend called me and said do you want to meet this guy who shot the video and is everywhere on the news? So I said sure. They asked me a few times to meet him outside of Cairo. All my Egyptian friends said ‘don’t go, this is a trap.’ I didn’t go. After 3 days, they said he was downtown and said ‘can you come to this café downtown?’ So I thought okay maybe this is secure. I went and he gave me the video, and everything he said was true. Anwar had a screen shot and from the screen shot he painted the WANTED poster. It was the face of this police officer and people wanted to catch this guy. Actually he surrendered to the cops.

G: But they let him go.

MW: But he spent four months in jail. It was a little success, but really it was the first success where we could see how art can influence this kind of politics. Otherwise they wouldn’t have done anything.

MC: Was there a network of artists aware of each other from the beginning?

G: Not really. A lot of other people started to do street art but we didn’t necessarily know each other. You could say there was a chain reaction. Each week passed by and there was more street art being done by people. By the end of 20011 or mid 2012 there were so many people. But in early 2011 there was really nobody at all making any street art. If you were to visit Cairo toward the end of 2010, you would not find a single piece of street art anywhere. And then if you were to visit by the end of 2011 or mid 2012, it was unavoidable. There was just so much everywhere. But it wasn’t planned. We never sat down and discussed ideas. It was very organic and very disorganized. I guess later is when we began to meet each other and have some kind of consolidated efforts.

MW: 2012 was really like the peak. A lot of young people started making music and graffiti for their causes. There was this group of 15 young guys who were showing each other (Ganzeer's) tank, a very big piece of graffiti under a bridge, one of the most famous pieces of graffiti from the revolution. It’s destroyed now. It was alive for two years in different forms and shapes. So I asked who did this and they said I don’t know. So it was very funny, these guys taught themselves how to make graffiti. It really was a form of a youth movement. 

MC: Can you talk about the risks of filming in the middle of riots?

MW: The first time we went behind the lines, because I needed some shots of the military, we were running with the soldiers and filming them. Then the secret service caught me. They made me erase the material. I was lucky and they let me go. That’s the only thing that happened, just that once near the beginning. Then I became skillful at playing cat and mouse games. They never caught me again. At the end in 2013, maybe I felt too secure and went into the riots too often. Things had changed. (The soldiers) would run to each side of a street and start shooting immediately. It was like a trap. It was very dangerous. I could feel fire, and sometimes something going past my ear. Sometimes I heard ‘boom boom boom’ and you never know. Is it a gun? Is it tear gas? The last time they were shooting in the direction of the taxi we had gotten in. I think they shot three times. In the film, you can see it. These guys are on the corner. I had enough material this time.

G: When did Abdul start shooting? Was it before or after this?

MW: Before. I had some footage from an Egyptian activist, a very young and talented guy. He had a different attitude than me. He was not afraid to die so he ran right up to the front line. He got people yelling into the camera and amazing scenes of the activists.

MC: You focused on some artists whose ideas and means of expression don't fall in line with the majority of the protest graffiti, such as Bosaina. Can you talk about your decision top include her in the film?

MW: It was very hard to find a woman who had the level of creative output as my main protagonist. I was really searching for somebody. Then somebody introduced me to her. For me, it fits perfectly with the rest of the film because she is such an extreme fighter for individual freedom. It’s like she’s living in a bubble. She’s not a propaganda activist like the other artists. She’s a radical propagandist for personal freedom. She would go on stage with a very sexy costume. Even for this kind of nightclub, it was too much for the audience. It was good to have her in the film.

MC: Can you discuss what has influenced you as a visual artist? 

G: I grew up reading American comic books. That was my first and foremost influence. Later, I started to discover design. The broad history of graphic design is also a major influence on my work. In general I’m very much like a sponge. I pick up many things very easily.

MC: A lot of your work seems to encourage active interaction with those who encounter it. Is this something you plan to continue?

G: Yeah, this is something I’ve been discussing with other artists in Egypt. It’s very difficult to do anything now if you’re not pro Sisi, he being the military general now in power. Our strategy is to do really annoyingly supportive posters. They are going to be so over the top and so supportive of him that, even if you are a pro Sisi supporter you’d say, ‘oh come on this is ridiculous.’ That’s the only way you can do it. It’s hard because there are already many ridiculous things and products in the name of supporting him, like chocolate…It’s already too much for us so we have to challenge ourselves and say ‘how ridiculously supportive we can be?’ and see how that works.’

MC: There seems to be a lot of elements of sarcasm in the protest artists' to express their messages. Is this something that has occurs a lot in Egypt?

G: Yeah, for example one of the artists in the film was originally an art teacher at Oxford University. He would go on archaeological expeditions. He once showed me an amazing image of a papyrus that Ancient Egyptians had been distributing. The artist had made it to ridicule the pharaoh. It was so sarcastic and funny where basically they had the image of a mouse sitting on the throne. In front of him are people that are cats worshipping this mouse god. It’s sort of saying this is not who should be ruling; he is weaker than the people. Another thing is an inscription in one of the caves above the Hatshepsut temple. This was not official but like hidden things that workers did. There’s one where one where they have Hatshepsut’s advisor having intercourse with her from behind. The way she is just sitting around and meanwhile she is the queen…This kind of thing appears all throughout history.

MC: In ART WAR you follow diverse forms of artistic expression, but graffiti seemed most important. Was it tough to balance the films' focus?

MW: As a filmmaker I always notice visuals and music. I knew of Rami Essam and the Revoultion Records, a hip hop band. Because of the context of the film, I was obviously looking for political themes, and works that would give the film a poetic frame. I went to some offices and it was difficult to shoot because it was not so exciting. For me, the emotion I found on the street was completely different. In the graffiti and street art there was a lot of messages of idealism and sacrifice and this idea of starting a new society. So I decided to focus on that and let the graffiti artists talk about it. It was exciting to see during a two and a half year period how they developed their tools. Not only the graffiti tells the story, but then the people on the street tell the story. Then the press comes. The newspapers print the pictures of graffiti. Then the books come out and guys like me are making movie about it. All of that, as you can see in the movie, doesn’t exist anymore. It’s completely destroyed. But the film still exists and I think it will exist forever.

MC: Has ART WAR lead you to thinking about another film you'd like to pursue?

MW: Maybe I’ll do a film about Hamed Abdel-Samad, the writer in the film who wrote the book, Islamic Fascism.  He was actually kidnapped last winter. We worried he was going to be killed. Now he is back. I really want to do his biography. His father was an Imam. He read Faust and moved to Germany to study German philosophers and then he started a fatwa against radical Islam. At one point he ended up in a mental hospital. He has a very strong biography that reflects a life of conflict.
---------------

If references above left you with a desire get a fuller sense of the big picture, try to catch up with ART WAR.

Follow director Marco Wilms on twitter and facebook.

In New York City, Ganzeer will engage in a conversation on Egyptian Street Art held at Revolution Books New York August 12 at 7:00 PM.

Me on twitter = @mondocurry

Interview with Frauke Finsterwalder and Christian Kracht on FINSTERWORLD

NOT Frauke Finsterwald and Christian Kracht

Back in May, I was able to speak with Frauke Finsterwalder, director of FINSTERWORLD, and Christian Kracht, with whom she cowrote the film, when it was shown in New York City during the KINO Festival of German Films. The exquisitely crafted film is filled with richly detailed characters and an intriguing narrative structure, making a conversation about the film with its creators an immediately enticing prospect.

While preparing for a discussion with the pair, I  made a glaring oversight, failing to learn the ever so slightly significant the detail that the two are husband and wife. This made for some unexpected but interesting turns in our conversation. I asked about this relatively unique working relation and how it may have come to affect the film. We also discussed the process of constructing the narrative and its intriguing set of characters, who Frauke and Christian have clearly given a lot of consideration both during and after the completion of the film, and how they are used to represent themes of the story and also possibly the creators of the film themselves.

MondoCurry: Are there parallels between being marriage partners and writing a film together?

(Frauke Finsterwalder) Yeah, I think for a successful marriage you need to have teamwork. And maybe for writing as well you need that. I think we have a good marriage, and maybe we are good writing partners as well.  You need to trust the people you work with. For me as a director, that’s true of anyone you work with, not just the writer. Who would I trust more than my husband? There’s no showing off the way you might do with a stranger.

(Christian Kracht) There are dubious ways of manipulation that come up when working with people you’re not related to. (Working with someone you’re married to), you’re actually more centered.

MC: You’ve worked primarily in making documentaries before. Was FINSTERWORLD a big departure from your previous work?

(FF) In terms of the subject, not really. It’s something we have both dealt with in a lot of our previous works. For me, the whole process of making a film with actors and a big team instead of only 3 people, was very different but I enjoyed it a lot.

MC: One of the character in the movie is a documentary filmmaker….Did this character represent aspects of your own life?

(FF) The character had nothing to do with me personally. Perhaps I wanted people to ask about this, as we share a similar name. Maybe with this character I was making fun of problems that a documentary filmmaker has. They cannot control what people do in front of the camera. They will not do what you tell them to do in front of the camera. They will just be themselves. But she is really an ignorant person. If we had a lot in common, I couldn’t do films. Nobody would want to work with me.

(CK) Maybe creating this character was like exorcising a part of you…a part of you that you’d like to get away from…because now you like to create fiction…

(FF) Yeah, like I had to get it out of my system. But I’ve never been like that.

(CK) I’m more like that.

(FF) I’m more like Claude, the pedicurist. I’m a very sociable person that likes to take care of others.

NOT Frauke Finsterwalder

MC: The title is interesting in that it is so similar to your name. Is there a playfulness to coming up with this title

(FF) We decided in the early stages it would be like a fairy tale, although somehow connected to Germany and within a modern society in general. The title tells you that you’ll be going on a journey into a certain world. It could be mine, the director’s world…Or it could just be ‘finster’ meaning dark world. ‘Finster’ means dark in German. There are all these references, like the children reading ‘Ghost World,’ the comic book. I kind of stole from that.

MC: One of your previous documentaries seemed to be about people doing something unusual in the public eye. FINSTERWORLD also has characters with attributes that would be considered out of the norm by many standards, Are you drawn to dealing with fringe people or characters in your work?

(FF) I have to say the (subjects of my first documentary) building the pyramid were quite normal. They just wanted to make money. Some were business people, some were artists who thought it would be a funny idea. They were normal and just used this shocking idea to get attention for their cause. Or just to get attention in general. So, That film dealt more with another subject we talked about in Finsterworld which is daily facism and how power structures work among people…They went into a small village and the village people were not happy about it. And then this whole struggle began.

(CK) I think one of the themes that you like to think about is humiliation. You had hierarchical structures where people placed themselves within the structure and humiliate others…

(FF) And that’s what happens in Finsterworld. It starts right at the beginning when the policeman and the pedicurist meet. There are all these moments about humiliation. Even in the film before this…That had a large influence on this film actually. That was a film about a summer camp. There is a character that really gets bullied. It’s a really sad, terrible film actually. That film has a really big influence on what happens to the young people in Finsterworld.   

(FF) It was a documentary but a lot of people thought it was fiction. I got so close to the young people at the camp, nobody could believe they allowed us to film. The way I edited and used music made it seem very much like a fiction film.

MC: What was it like now that you could make up characters and control what they do in order to tell your story?

(FF) It was like a self-fulfilling prophecy. It kind of just had to be the way it is now. It’s hard to say ‘why.’ It wasn’t that we just sat down and said ok here are 12 characters and let’s plot it out with a flip chart…

(CK) The process of writing was completely intuitive. We weren’t going on a trajectory that would then lead us somewhere. We would just start and then see what happened. We would sometimes speak to each other as these characters, like in restaurants. There really wasn’t a structure we were following.

(FF) We were thinking a lot about a classical tragedy, for example. And one big thing in that is there is someone who hasn’t done anything, but through coincidence or fate becomes guilty. So that was something we required.  We never really thought about it but somehow it had to be in the structure of this film about darkness. A person who had to kill happens to be the only innocent person. That’s something that is a very classical theme in tragedy. If you read enough books and think about books, there is something that just had to be like that.

MC: When writing the characters, did you start out with a central one and branch out from there? It seems like there is equal significance among all of them.

(FF) Claude was the one we invented first but it was clear he wouldn’t be the only one. Then we came up with the youngsters who were visiting the concentration camp. It was very clear that their story was going to be a part of it.

The working title for the film was ‘Autobahn.’ We started out thinking we’d have this very German thing where everyone could drive without a speed limit. It looks like a skeleton. We don’t have a lot of untouched nature like here in the United States. It’s a tiny country and everyone drives a car. So we would have all these characters driving on the highway. But it was very clear to me that this would be horrible because you don’t want to see people just driving cars all the time. Especially on the not so beautiful Autobahn. Also we would’ve never been able to shoot that film because the automobile industry in Germany is so powerful. It’s really hard to get streets cleared for film shoots. So I was very glad we didn’t have that many scenes in the car.. That’s where the idea for the couple, the parents of Maximillian, came into being, though.  

NOT Christian Kracht and Frauke Finsterwalder

(CK) It’s very odd because you rent this car and you get in the passing lane and you’re going so fast. You get in this adrenaline zone and in your brain, you don’t even realize you’re going that fast. It’s like a rocket…

(FF) That was also a concept of the film that we were coming up with. We thought of  the idea of people being alone in this bubble and very lonely. And then the bubble would crack and something would enter the bubble and catastrophe would happen, or maybe not… For Klaude something wonderful happens…There are characters that get what they wanted while others get punished. Others get away with things they have done.

MC: It’s interesting that you decided to make this film while living away from Germany. Was making a film about German society something you’d long had an interest in doing?

(FF) (Christian) has lived there for very short periods but has been away more than living there. At the point of writing the film, I’d been away for two years. Actually after doing this pyramid film I’d really had enough of Germany and couldn’t imagine doing another film with East Germans. When we came back I felt like my first fiction film should deal with it because it’s part of me and my history. Even if I live in other countries it will always be a part of me. So is the language. When I first confronted Christian with this, he wasn’t very happy because we had planned to do a film in Argentina, where we lived at that time. I said I’m sorry but I’m afraid we have to do a film about Germany. I’m not done with Germany. Christian was very angry at first. When we started talking about it, we both really thought it was a good idea. Maybe that’s why I really had to do a fiction film where I could control the story in order to say what I wanted to say. Now I can move on. I’m definitely not going to do another film about Germany.

MC: Can you describe your relationship to the characters now that the story is finished?

(CK) Since we spent some time with these characters, they are part of us. A lot of their idiosyncracies are lifted from parts of our very own feelings. Sometimes even though this film is now finished, we still talk to each other as these characters sometimes. We catch ourselves. It’s interesting how they live on in our relationship.

(FF) I’ve watched the film hundreds of time since it was finished. I actually enjoy watching it again because every time there is another character whom I draw more attention to. And I like all of them. And we have discussed that maybe we would make another film with two of them. But now I’ve decided I’d rather do something else. It could be possible though, to have a little TV series. For example Claude going on a cruise ship…Or we were thinking about putting the yuppie couple into a situation where they go to Nepal or some third world country, looking for enlightenment…it would be very funny, but maybe someone else has to do it.

One World, Worlds Apart: FINSTERWORLD, Kino Festival of German Films 2014

The visuals of FINSTERWORLD are stunning. Richly detailed, at times glistening in the sun. Yet what is being depicted could initially seem inane. A wide cross section of characters, some closely related, and others coming upon one another through happenstance, go about their days, recalling the tangled web of relations in Magnolia. Many relations are shown: that of an aging couple rekindling passion, a far younger couple for whom individual ambitions and needs create a growing rift, a high school’s pair of alpha males and an outsider pair between which romantic interests create malicious intentions, and the liberal minded teacher in charge of their behavior.  Through slow and deliberate storytelling, a hypotheses are formed about the way these social groups navigate their relations. What they have in common is a shared national identity, one that is made out to be overshadowed by the reach of a dark history. This manifests as feelings of shame, either of the self or the surrounding culture.  Sometimes. Other characters, the young in particular, are often at odds with those of the adults. Conflicts between teacher and student, parent and young adult offspring arise.

The film also deals with those forming fascinations with aspects of life that the mainstream majority would be uncomfortable with – ‘fetishes’ being the shorthand. A man who provides pedicures and therapeutic treatment for people’s feet has an all-encompassing attraction to them, including those of an elderly woman he treats. A traffic officer is a “furry,” someone with an interest in wearing head to toe body suits resembling animals that maintain human characteristics. These interests are not ridiculed. Rather, they are shown with sensitivity and related back to more general difficulty being at ease with oneself.

Director Frauke Finsterwalder masterfully brings about a change of tone from neutral to dark, as when the sky darkens and clouds gather ominously to signal a brooding storm.  The cruelty of high school students put at odds with each other due to social class hierarchical differences and budding hormones comes to the fore. The police officer’s need to express his desire to his wife, a frustrated documentary filmmaker, threatens to lead to a severe disconnect between the two.

Characters’ lives are threaded together in absorbing ways leading to results that defy conventional notions of karma. Perhaps much like life as we know it, fates are not always deserving. Yet, there is also the potential for those seemingly hopeless to connect with the world around them to experience gratifying instances of community.

FINSTERWORLD plays as part of the 2014 Kino Festival of German Films in New York on Monday, June 16, Sunday, June 15 and Tuesday, June 17 at 4 pm and 9:30 pm. On Tuesday, there will also be a free talk held with director Frauke Finsterwalder and screenwriter Christian Kracht, From Script to Screen, held at the Deutsch Hause at NYU.  Visit the website for more details or to buy tickets.

Battle Lines Drawn On The Walls: ART WAR, Kino Festival of German Films 2014

From Marco Wilms, a seasoned documentary filmmaker and true revolutionary in both spirit and action, comes this highly kinetic, explosively colorful account of rebellion in progress. Its entry point is street art, or graffiti, yet its scope is much larger, bringing to light numerous forms of artistic expression as they are employed engagingly to bring about change.  Beginning with a view of Egypt’s struggle-ridden Tahrir Square, a narrator relates the current situation of citizens’ resistance to the Islamic Brotherhood Party to a history thousands of years old filled with cultural battles, some of the earliest of which have been memorialized by visual artists on temple walls. The struggle is shown to go through phases, from upbeat rallies where those hoping too overthrow Morsi’s oppressive regime appear to sing out en masse, to horrifyingly violent skirmishes with both police and party supporters, which Wilms camera in hand, throws himself right into the middle of.  We see Hamed Abdel-Samad, a writer and political theorist, engaged in a sudden conflict with a group of men taking issue with he questioning of religion depicted on his shirt.

The artistic activity is looked at in relation to the struggle and so the view of these many artists comes in rapid fire bursts that one must be on their toes to keep up with. With so many subjects, Wilms has employed clever means of incorporating them into the film. In terms of music, the hip hop anthems of standing against oppression by Revolution Records plays throughout the film, and we see a lively performance of folk artist Ramy Essam in front of an impressive crowd of protestors. Hamed shares insights into revolutions at large, considering them ‘not successes or failures, but history’s engine that brings about change.’ 

It is the street art that stands our front and center, which we see created during risky nighttime gambits. Graphic designer Ganzeer’s clear-cut propaganda style imagery, reminiscent, in part, of Shepard Fairey or Banksy, offers an ‘alternative propaganda to that of the government.’ Then  there are the constantly changing paintings on Mohamed Mamoud street, an area known for being the site of brutal conflicts between protestors and police where many young individuals have met tragic ends. Ammar introduces his work that was made to memorialize these victims. We later see paintings on these walls to express new visions and communicate more urgent messages, in one very striking visual, the public displays depict the graphic disfiguration of some of the unfortunate revolutionaries.

Wilms’ vision does not avoid complications, showing different facets of this period of unrest. A Youtube video is shown of a group taking credit for destroying one of Ganzeer’s murals. There is also anti-protest propaganda made by a supporter of a religious known as the Salafist party. Interesting too is a shift in focus to look at another musician, an electro punk artist known as Bosaina. She is less interested in direct political opposition, taking more personal issues with the censorship of self she has experienced throughout her life, and as a result carrying on a kind of personal artistic protest by challenging a stultifying gender identity she feels saddled with.

Wilms captures the frenetic exchange of these many ideas, conflicts, and modes of expression in exciting fashion, a crash course introduction to a very real revolution. One that will doubtlessly trigger strong urges to learn more about its dynamic subjects.

ART WAR plays as part of the 2014 Kino Festival of German Films in New York on Monday, June 16 at 4 PM at the Quad Cinema. Visit the website for more details or to buy tickets.