Ughniyat Touha al-Hazina, een portret van de straatartiesten in Caïro en in vele opzichten de zusterfilm van Husan al-Tin, is Al-Abnoudy’s tweede film en afstudeerwerk aan de filmschool in Caïro. Het kunstenaarschap van deze groep van vuurvreters, piepjonge slangenmensen en andere artiesten wordt gevat in niet-opdringerig camerawerk, vergezeld door de spaarzame en spokende voice-over van dichter Abdel Rahman Al-Abnoudy.
“I don’t want to make films because of some beautiful subject or because there’s something fascinating me in the colours or anything like that. We always tend to see lovely houses and lovely hills, the decor and other fantastic things before us on the screen. But the poor people and the working class are not on the screen, when they have the right to be. When I talked to the young belly-dancer in Sad Song of Touha, for instance, she said she really would like to be a dancer in a cabaret, because she always goes to the cinema and sees these belly-dancers and beautiful girls. She said, ‘I would like to see myself on the screen.’ So I said, ‘why not!’”
Arabic spoken, English subtitles
Film prints courtesy of Arsenal – Institute for Film and Video Art
