Sayed Badreya in T for Terrorist |
Rebel
With a Cause
by:Sherif Awad
Boycotted Egyptian-American filmmaker Sayed Badreya's award-winning
short T for Terrorist might be screened at the Italian
Cultural Institute - if he's lucky
Sayed Badreya has made a name for himself in
America as a filmmaker and character actor, but what little attention
he's gotten back home has almost exclusively been metted out at
the dusty offices of the nation's censors.
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Sayed Badreya on the set |
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Here,
his scenes in Hollywood megaproductions - Roland Emmerich's science
fiction adventures Stargate and Independence Day,
Executive Decision (Stuart Baird's Die Hard-on-a-plane),
David O. Russell's Three Kings and Michael Mann's thriller
The Insider - were icily slashed.
"Most of these roles were cut by the censors. Maybe because
they hate what I represent. In Independence Day I played an Arab
pilot who helps the Americans in their fight against the alien
invasion. And no actor could refuse working under Michael Mann's
direction, especially with Al Pacino [in The Insider],
an idol of mine. It didn't matter to me if I was cast as a gunman
from Hezbollah.
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Teigen Fraker breaks the
stereo-typecasting in T for Terrorist
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Some Egyptian
film critics accused me of playing terrorist roles, but these
are only stereotypes, like when Marlon Brando plays a Nazi officer
or Zaky Rostom plays a crime boss. Even Adel Imam has sported
a big beard in El-Erhaby (The Terrorist). Playing
the villain with honesty doesn't mean you're the bad guy in real
life," he says.
What puzzles Badreya more is the recent refusal of an Egyptian
documentary film festival to screen a short film he co-produced
with another Egyptian working in America about the image of Arabs
as terrorists in American eyes. The organizing committee's refusal
to show T for Terrorist (aka T4T) at the Ismailia
Documentary Film Festival in September underscores Badreya's growing
frustration.
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The film met with rave reviews and
won the Best Narrative Short award in the last Boston Film Festival.
The Discovery channel later interviewed Badreya and Issawy for their
documentary "Casting Calls," a special program
discussing Hollywood's stereotyping in casting. It compares the
casting of Middle Easterners in film to the stereotypical roles
of African- Americans during the years of slavery, and the Japanese
during World War II in 1940s and 1950s American cinema.
"T4T made the American audience both laugh, think
and understand that not all Arabs are terrorists and not all Americans
are heroes," Badreya says. But the way it looks, the only audience
he may ever have will be American. In September, Badreya was negotiating
with the Italian Cultural Institute to screen T4T, but
neither he nor the institute were able to confirm a date at press
time. |
On the set of T
for Terrorist
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Co-written
and directed by Hesham Essawy and featuring noted Arab-American
actor Tony Shahloub, this short feature explores the typecasting
of Arab actors in Hollywood. Shot in Panavision, not in digital
format, T4T stars Badreya in the partially biographical
role of Sayed, the Arab-born actor who is typecast as a terrorist
in American productions.
The film opens with a young Hollywood director yelling: "You're
an Arab, they're American, these are the guys who stole your land."
But Sayed turns the tables around, taking over the set and forcing
the director to play the terrorist while he takes the helm.
The film met with rave reviews and won the Best Narrative Short
award in the last Boston Film Festival. The Discovery channel later
interviewed Badreya and Essawy for their documentary "Casting
Calls," a special program discussing Hollywood's stereotyping
in casting. It compares the casting of Middle Easterners in film
to the stereotypical roles of African- Americans during the years
of slavery, and the Japanese during World War II in 1940s and 1950s
American cinema.
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Hesham Issawi, director
of
T for Terrorist
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Martin Scorcese in Saving Egyptian Film
Classics |
"T4T
made the American audience both laugh, think and understand that
not all Arabs are terrorists and not all Americans are heroes,"
Badreya says. But the way it looks, the only audience he may ever
have will be American.
In September, Badreya was negotiating with the Italian Cultural
Institute to screen T4T, but neither he nor the institute
were able to confirm a date at press time.
Badreya is no stranger to the cold-shoulder treatment. In 2001,
he released a 52-minute documentary titled Saving Egyptian
Classics, which featured American directors Martin Scorsese
and Arthur Hiller. It discussed the preservation of film negatives
by the Academy of Motion Picture and Consolidated Film Industries
(CFI, a division of Technicolor Entertainment Services), the leading
preservation center in Hollywood.
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At
a symposium in Cairo later that year, Badreya spoke about the dire
consequences of neglecting our films in storage rooms - and extended
CFI's offer to restore many of the classics of Egyptian cinema for
free.
No one was interested in the offer, he says.
"Only a few people like Mostafa Darwish [film editor at El-Cinema
Wil Nass magazine], film critic Samir Farid and actress Nabila
Ebeid acknowledged what I screened," remembers Badreya. "The
rest are more or less self-centered. Maybe this film about saving
our celluloid heritage is the reason why my scenes are cut in my
home country.
They want me forgotten so that everybody could pursue his hidden
agenda". Refusing to give up, Sayed enlisted the help of sports
journalist-turned MP Mahmoud Maarouf to push the issue into the
People's Assembly. Still there was no feedback.
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"...not all Arabs
are terrorists, and
not all Americans are heroes" |
Classic Egyptian film
reels
in dire need of restoration |
"Even
the two offers I bought from CFI and the Academy of Motion Picture
Art and Science to restore silent classics and Shady Abd El-Salam's
The Mummy are likely to be rejected because 'they' don't
want Americans to interfere in what is left of the Egyptian heritage.
"I feel that Egyptian cinema has no one to turn to. Everyone
is denying his responsibility. Neither the Ministry of Culture
nor the Egyptian Company for Production and Distribution seem
to realize that time is killing our history.
A new generation of film enthusiasts must take over. We need another
Talaat Harb."
A divine miracle is more like it.
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