Film-maker examines Egyptian history and identity

Nadia Kamel (photo: The National)

Nadia Kamel is an Egyptian with Jews, Muslims and Christians in her family. Her controversial documentary Salata Baladi uses her multicultural ancestry to examine Egyptian history and identity. However, Kamel denies accusations that the film, which includes a dramatic reunion between her mother and the Israeli branch of her family, favours 'normalisation' between Israel and Egypt. The Gulf newspaper The National has this profile:

"The documentary Salata Baladi (An Egyptian Salad) has not yet received the approval of Egypt’s censors, nor has it had a commercial release. But it’s won several awards at film festivals, and its director, Nadia Kamel, has screened it 20 times at private, improvised venues in Cairo and Alexandria.

The film is structured around the story of Kamel’s own multicultural family, which she uses to mount a critique of Egyptian nationalism and what she sees as a rising tide of close-mindedness and intolerance in Egyptian society. “I want to reclaim my Egyptian diversity,” she says. “I want to tell the story of how we are real Egyptians too.”

Earlier this summer, after a screening in the theatre of a Cairene high school, a young, veiled woman rose from the audience to ask Kamel what exactly she was trying to say about Egyptian identity. Her tone was one of umbrage muffled by politeness. Kamel, a small, energetic woman with a mane of greying hair, responded by launching into a long, fluid discussion of Egypt’s “identity paralysis” – its inability, as she sees it, to openly discuss and critique its own history. She wants Salata Baladi, her first feature-length film, to combat this paralysis by starting a conversation about troublesome, oft-avoided historical subjects, including: the flight of Egypt’s Jews before and after the 1952 Free Officers’ Coup; the effectiveness of the Arab boycott of Israel; and, ultimately, the notion of a singular Egyptian identity.

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