The "Post-production" Screenplay

Finally we can say we are almost done with the film. Now we have what we can call a first cut. Editing  has been consuming a lot of time and energy but we have a great editor "Islam Kamal" who is patient enough to deal with 6 directors. The small "orange" room where we edit gets very crowded every time the 7 of us meet. At the moment we are also trying to let others watch the first cut and tell us what they think. Some have loved the film, others have hated it but Islam thinks this is better than feeling neutral about it.

Since the film is not divided into segments anymore, Islam suggested that each on of us should write the film's screenplay or treatment again. The film has changed a lot since we began working on it so we met yesterday to discuss the new screenplay each one of us has written. We all came up with new ideas and hopefully we'll have a final cut very soon.

The big piece of paper where Hadidi wrote the film's new screenplay

The First Fan

Few days ago, a guy called "Mahmoud Radi" posted a note on facebook in Arabic. The note summarizes everything we did or thought of while making this film in the past two years. It's like Mahmoud was with us in every step. We are really happy for all this effort Mahmoud has put in writing this note. For the first time we feel that we have a fan for the film. This is why we would like to thank Mahmoud Radi; the film's first fad and thank him for his effort, time and devotion. We all hope he likes the film when he watches it eventually.

Mahmoud Radi's note on facebook

The Trailer

FINALLLLLLLLY we have a trailer :) Please check it and tell us what you think.

Cliquez ici pour les sous tires français s'il vous plaît

(For French subtitles, please click here)

https://vimeo.com/themiceroomfilm/trailerfrench

Funding

Since the beginning we've decided to make this film ourselves and to finish it no matter what happens and since it's our first feature film, we knew it was hard to find production in the early stages so we went through development, pre-production and production with almost a zero budget and a lot of people really helped us to be where we are right now. When we finished shooting and having a rough cut, we thought we should apply for post-production funds or grants for so many reasons. First to finish the film the way we want it with the quality we want but can't afford. Second to finish it on time without having as a problem. Last but not least to learn more about writing proposals and applications, making budgets, pitching, ... etc. We've learned a lot making this film. The 6 of us had a filmmaking workshop but we learned almost everything in this film not in the workshop so it was important to have this experience part of the learning process. 

Since June we've been applying to all the possible grants and finishing funds like Cinereach, Doha, Hubert Bals, San Sebastian & AFAC film grants. Today we've just known the results of AFAC film grant and that the project was not accepted. It was our last hope after being rejected in all the previous grants. We really thought that applying for a finishing or post-production fund was easy but apparently we were so wrong. Today we all met and everybody was disappointed but Nermeen for sure :) so we decided not to waste more time or effort applying or waiting for other grants and that we should have a final cut by January 12th and then we'll work on color correction, audio mixing, music ... etc

A screen shot for the e-mail of rejection from Cinereach 2012

FIRST Pitching EVER

On October 16th, 2012 Mayye has received an e-mail saying that the film is accepted in the Producers' Network in Carthage Film Festival. She was very excited but she was not in Egypt at that time so the best way to tell the good news was to have a conference call on skype :) We were very happy as we've been sending the project to different places and always get rejected. This was the first time to be accepted so you can imagine how happy we were :)

All of us in a conference call on skype

Someone from us had to travel so Mayye was chosen BUT this meant that we have to pitch the project. No one of us has ever pitched any project and some of us never even heard of the word "pitching" but we thought it's a good opportunity for us and the film. It's part of the learning process we started by making this film. Mohamad El Hadidi and Ahmed Magdy were busy in finishing Hadidi's short film to screen in it on November 11th. 

Due to many things a week before the festival, Mayye wasn't able to travel so we had to ask the festival if it's possible to let someone else to travel but unfortunately it was too late. Mayye had to travel because the worst pitching she'll ever give will be better than none. In 4 days we had to figure out what to say, make a handmade book, burn many many dvds and print a lot of documents and of course you know that printers and dvd writers don't like this so they of course they have carshed !!

Mohamad El-Hadidi had to translate some documents to French so the film's title became "La Chambre des Souris" which sounds very funny. Anyway FINALLY I made it to Tunisia and it was such a great feeling to find The Mice Room in the festival's catalogue.

The project's description in the festival's catalogue

Right now I'm waiting for my turn to pitch the project so I thought I should kill the time by writing this post :)

My POV in the pitching room