SIFF 2014

When we received the e-mail confirming that The Mice Room or "O Quarto dos Ratos" in Portuguese will be screened in the prestigious São Paulo International Film Festival, we were really overwhelmed. For us it was such a great opportunity to screen the film in a festival with many great filmmakers from all over the world. The film was screened four times in the official competition of the festival's 38th edition. It was screend on: Oct. 16th, Oct. 17th, 18th and 20th.

Again, not all of us could travel to Brazil to attend the festival. Despite it was Mayye, Zedan & Nermeen's turn to travel, Magdy was the only available one to go on that trip. And this time we were supported by the Egyptian Ministry of Culture who covered Magdy's travel expenses. 

Magdy during the Q&A after the screening

Magdy's interview in the festival's daily video (in English)

Bridge International Film Festival 2014

The film is going to be screened in Bridge International Film Festival on October 7th, 2014 in Kosovo. 

Interview with Samir Nabil

Samir Nabil or Object Obscure as he calls himself, is the sound designer and mixer of the film. He is one of the film's greatest supporters. In his studio Badroom, we spent many months editing the film and working on sound, before moving to Rufy's new place. Here in this interview he talks about his work in films in general as a music composer and a sound designer. He talks about his studio Badroom, where all the film's dubbing process, sound mixing and design happened.  

Screening in Bibliotheca Alexndrina

It is very scary to watch a film you made with the audience. It even more scary when most of this audience is your actors, all your film crew, your friends, your family and all the people supporting you, who are watching the film for the first time. That happened when we decided to screen the film in Bibliotheca Alexandrina last April. Many of the actors haven't seen us for years, since the time of shooting. It was such a joy to meet all of them again and watch the film with them and with our parents, friends and family. After all, we tried to do our best, so that we don't disappoint them. 

The Q&A after the screening was curated by Ahmed Nabil, who is not only the film programmer in Bibliotheca Alexandrina, but also one of the film's assistant directors. All of the above photos are taken by Michel Abu Zakhm, who is one of the film's actors himself.

Tetouan International Festival for Mediterranean Cinema 2014

We had two GREAT screenings in Tetouan International Festival for Mediterranean Cinema in Morocco. The film was screened on April 1st in Avenida hall and on April 2nd in Espagnol hall. The Moroccan audience loved the film. Unfortunately, the 6 of us couldn't make it to the screenings, but those who did told us so. They kept sending us pictures, updates and great feedbacks about the film in Morocco.

Hend is putting the film's poster in the entrance of the movie theatre

The festival was only able to invite two of us. This time we had to choose who should go. Tossing a coin seemed the most fair option and Ahmed Magdy Morsy and Hend Bakr were the lucky ones. However, Mayye Zayed & Mohamad El-Hadidi decided to apply to ADEF travel grant "Jiran". Eventually, It was Hadidi who got the grant and he was able to join Hend and Magdy 2 days later. After a long trip, he actually arrived just few minutes before the first screening. Here is an interview, moments before the first screening.

Hadidi & Magdy's interview in MAPTVMaroc (in Arabic)

Hend, Hadidi, Magdy and the film's posters 

We are really grateful to the Moroccan audience who made these 2 screenings and the whole trip unforgettable. We are also very grateful to ADEF for its great support for the film and the filmmakers. Thanks to it and to "Jiran" travel grant, Ahmed Magdy Morsy and Mohamed Zedan were able to attend the film's world premiere in Dubai International Film Festival last December and Mohamad El-Hadidi was able to attend this screening in Morocco. 

Hadidi, Hend & Magdy before the film's premiere in Morocco

Waiting for the movie theatre to be full hopefully

Hend is testing the DCP copy before the screening

The film is being screened in Espanol Hall

DCP

The film was accepted in Tetouan International Mediterranean Film Festival in Morocco. In order to screen it there we had to transfer the film to a digital cinema package or in other words "DCP". Since we have applied for other funds to be able to transfer it but never got accepted, we had no choice but to try it ourselves. Like everything else in the process of making this film, we started learning about how to transfer the film to DCP using open source programs like OpenDCP. It seemed like an easy process but the problem was in testing the DCP itself. During this time we tried to get in touch with the manager of Aroma which is a very famous company here in Egypt for post-production services, with the help of our dear friend Maysoon El Massry. Luckily he agreed to offer us a DCP copy without any money. All he needed was to write "the film is transferred to DCP with the support of Aroma" before the film's final credits which seemed fair enough and now we have a DCP copy for the film :)

LAFF 2014

The film was screened last Friday in Luxor African Film Festival as it was competing for the feature film award. It was the film's Egyptian and African premiere and it was disappointing because of the festival's lack of organization. First of all the film's information and the directors' names were wrong in the festival's catalogue !! The film was supposed to be screened twice; first in a city called El-Tod and then in Luxor but the 2nd screening's location was wrong in the festival's printed and online programme. We had to ask the organizers to print some announcements with the right information and post them with the film's poster all over the place to make sure people know when and where the screening is taking place. Luckily we had some post cards so we tried to invite people to the screening. 

The film's post cards in LAFF 2014

We really wanted to go to the film's first screening but we were very surprised that there were no shuttles or cars to transport us to El-Tod which was one hour away so we couldn't go !! But we did go to the 2nd screening and it was ok. There were problems in the film's audio but at least people showed up.

The film is being screened in LAFF 2014

The 6 directors and the editor Islam Kamal in the Q&A after the screening

We do know that all these issues were not intentional and since this is just the festival's 3rd edition, we do hope that the upcoming editions will be better and more organized. Other than the film's screening we all had a great time in the city of Luxor. The best thing about this festival was the fact that some of the film's crew managed to travel with us. Sameh Nabil, Samir Nabil, Islam Kamal, Mark Lotfy, Mina Nabil THANK YOU.