Atteyat Al-Abnoudy

Husan al-Tin (Horse of Mud)

Courtisane: Out of the Shadows

12' - 1971 - Dialogue: Arabic

Director: Atteyat Al-Abnoudy

Courtisane

In her first film, made on a shoestring with borrowed equipment, Atteyat Al-Abnoudy captures the basic process of mud-brick making on the banks of the Nile.

In her first film, made on a shoestring with borrowed equipment, Atteyat Al-Abnoudy captures the basic process of mud-brick making on the banks of the Nile. The film was refused by the censors, who didn’t like to show the people as very poor after twenty years of revolution in Egypt. Eventually, they gave permission for non-commercial screenings, after which the film went on to win more than thirty international prizes.

Film prints courtesy of Arsenal – Institute for Film and Video Art.

“For the first time, the people talk about themselves, and we listen to their voices, not a cleverly written commentary on what the people are doing, like strangers coming from the sky, telling us what we are seeing now … The brick factory workers dominate the screen: their faces, their hands and their suffering … I worked on this 10-minute film for two years, because I had no money, and also because the bricks have to be dried in the sun. I shot the film at the end of the summer, and I had to wait till the next summer to complete it.”