The Mice Room - Film Press Kit

Alexandria is a city of ghosts..You

can always feel these souls at unrest and all these untold stories...

synopsis Six different characters roaming in Alexandria along with their fears. Amr comes back to meet his father in his death bed, not sure how he can speak up and show his true feelings. Moussa spends his day afraid of crossing a street until he makes amends with his side of the road. Dahlia, on her wedding day, seems lost in worries about her off-white marriage. The young girl discovers her grandmother's decay through her play time.

After her husband's death, Rawya starts a habit of sleeping late, however, discovers a new exciting life at night. Maha, packing for leaving the country, starts questioning the changes that happened or might happen in her life. They share the same creepy feelings in the same city but never meet.

When the six of us thought of writing a feature together, not even making or finishing it, many people thought we were crazy.

We weren't aware then of how difficult our idea was. We weren't aware that one day someone will tell us that this is the first time in the history of cinemat to have a film produced in such a manner.

We are six different people who decided to make an independent feature “together�.

Directors' Statement With the beginning of the last century, the Egyptian cinema started in Alexandria and later moved to Cairo. Filmmaking got centralized in Cairo for decades for it was exclusively run by production companies there. This went on until independent filmmaking stepped in. It nourished the idea of making films in Alexandria again. However, having very low budgets, Alexandrian filmmakers got stuck with short films. We wanted to take it a step further.

Being six different characters sharing the same dream was something exciting and scary. Exciting because we have worked a lot together before and we looked at feature films as more challenging than short ones.

However, it was still a bit scary for it is not a common thing for a group of filmmakers in Egypt or anywhere else to make one single film.

Moreover, we made a decision in our first meetings; we will be the crew in each other's films. We thought that working on a collaborative film in such a way would enable us to gain more experience and give us a chance to learn with a hands-on experience.

In extensive meetings, we worked closely on each story. The fact that one of us wrote it didn’t mean that the rest didn’t take part in developing the story, characters, dialogue and doing our best to perfect each detail.

We did the same while shooting, choosing locations and actors. The main idea wasn’t to make a collection of different visions for different filmmakers of the same theme but to make one narrative feature about different stories happening alongside one another.

That’s why one vision had to be woven and worked on. No opinion is neglected. It was an ongoing workshop that’s based on brainstorming and discussion. That might have been the reason for our very slow

pace as well. Finally, we finished shooting and started editing. Generally the relation between the director and editor is very challenging as they usually argue for each cut. It took us so much time and energy to reach compromises with the editor; having added a new person to the discussions and thoughts. It is very difficult, even for us, to claim that any of the shots or cuts or any detail in the film belongs to any one of us.

To state whose vision something is, the six of us have to be mentioned. “You simply cancelled the main idea the cinema depended on for decades; the auteur” commented a French producer on the project. The interesting thing about the experiment is that it killed “the filmmaker’s ego” in each one of us without canceling his/ her character. There are differences of course, between the styles in which each story is directed or told but they are differences that don’t stop the flow between the stories.

Since the beginning, we all decided that we’ll make this film with our own money. All of the actors and actresses are non-professionals and many of them are our personal friends who just wanted to help. All the film crew are volunteers and the film is shot in real locations, where no penny was paid. The actual amount of money paid during production is 22,000 EGP [equivalent to 3,250 USD] along with our personal cameras and computers, that were used for the shooting and editing later. It took us around 30 days of shooting over the course of a year and a half for production, and an additional year and a half of editing and post-production. The film then received Enjaaz post- production grant after we presented a rough cut. Unlike other Egyptian features, working on post- production including color grading, sound design,etc. all took place in Alexandria.

We also have to mention that when we started working on music, we were lucky enough to find Anna Drubich; a Russian music composer

living in the US whom we worked with through Skype. It was another challenge that we were happy to take on. All these challenges brought us to the idea of Rufy’s; a film production company the six of us have founded to help independent filmmakers in Alexandria make their movies, the way we made ours. Essentially, it was The Mice Room that started Rufy’s, and not the other way around.

The fact that we have reached this stage of production amazes us and the people around us. It is only now that we came to understand the difficulty and importance of our experiment. We still hope to produce a film that people and critics would like on an artistic level, but we are also proud of making it happen without quitting at any point along the way and without killing each other. We are even working on other projects together now, that are in different production phases. We are also very proud that many of the people who had worked with us in The Mice Room are making their own films now here in Alexandria not Cairo or anywhere else.

Viva Alexandria!

main cast

main crew

Hanan Youssef Moustafa Darweech Noura Saafan Nihad Yahia Kamal Ismail Malak Magdy Zeyad Salem

Directors/Screenwriters/Producers: Hend Bakr Mohamad El-Hadidi Ahmed Magdy Morsy Nermeen Salem Mayye Zayed Mohamed Zedan Production: Rufy's Fig Leaf Studios Enjaaz Executive Producer: Mark Lotfy 1st Assistant Directors: Ahmed Magdy Morsy Ahmad El-Chazli Ahmed Nabil Mohamad El-Hadidi Mohamed Zedan Nermeen Salem Editor: Islam Kamal DOPs: Mohamad El-Hadidi Mayye Zayed Islam Kamal Music Composer: Anna Drubich Sound Designer & Mixer: Samir Nabil Colorist: Tamer Nady

biographies Morsy, El Hadidi, Zayed, Bakr, Zedan and Salem have always been interested in filmmaking. They joined an independent filmmaking workshop at the Jesuit Cultural Centre in 2009/2010. They have always worked in each others films and they all worked in Ibrahim El Batout's feature “Hawi” in 2010. Together they founded Rufy's; an initiative that supports independent filmmakers in Alexandria, Egypt. It is producing and co-producing a handful of diverse films that are currently going through different production phases. “The Mice Room” is their first feature.

Rufy's [Production Company] A self-funded initiative and an independent production house that dwells heavily on the quality, and the process of making the film. It is active in supporting emerging independent filmmakers in Alexandria. It is producing and co-producing a handful of diverse films in Alexandria that are currently going through different production phases. [

]

http://www.rufysstudio.tk

Fig Leaf Studios [Co-producer] An audio and video production studio that was established in Alexandria in 2005. The studio produces features, short films, documentaries and visual art videos. It promotes the independent cinema and art movement in Alexandria and supports artists and filmmakers through both technical training and assistance, and by overseeing artistic and cultural workshops. It supports debut work of young artists and acts as a counselor and advisor.

[Co-producer]

http://figleafstudio.com

Enjaaz [Co-producer] A Dubai film market initiative. It is the post-production and production funding support program that provides vital post-production financial support to film projects led by Arab film-makers.

[Co-producer]

http://dubaifilmfest.com/en/industry/dubai-film-market/enjaaz

Technical Information Genre: Fiction Duration: 85 min Language: Arabic Subtitles: English Countries: Egypt/UAE

An independent collaborative

feature made by 6 filmmakers; Ahmed Magdy Morsy, Hend Bakr, Mayye

Zayed,

Mohamad

El-

Hadidi, Mohatmed Zedan and Nermeen Salem in Alexandria,

Egypt. It is produced by Rufy's including

the

6

filmmakers

and co-produced by Fig Leaf Studios and Enjaaz [a Dubai film market initiative].

HTTP://THEMICEROOMFILM.BLOGSPOT.COM

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