Bewritings

Ahmed Gad, a Sussex postgraduate student, recently produced the short film In-Between for his Media Practice for Development & Social Change course. Primarily for his Short Doc: Research & Production module, it has since seen much success. Last year, the short film won awards within the SHASHA Mobile Film Festival, MASRdotBokra Film Festival and London Arthouse Film Festival. It was also amongst the official selection of the Cairo Shorts Film Festival. Gad described the success as “unplanned [yet] reassuring… something great to remember 2020.”

In-Between focuses on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic: specifically, Gad takes inspiration from his own experiences. He commented: “at [the] time, I was unable to plan or to decide whether to stay in the UK or return home to Egypt. I just wanted to make a piece of art about that. And the vision was to raise more questions than to answer and to portray the feelings of fear and confusion lived by my wife and me while facing the COVID-19 pandemic in foreignness in our first year of marriage far away from our families.”

Combined with his personal experience, Gad drew heavily from an anti-capitalist viewpoint. He discussed how “the globalized mass-production, the exaggeration of commodifying and materializing all human needs, are destroying humanity.” He further detailed how “neoliberal capitalist politics used to profit from disasters by passing [usually] difficult-to-pass policies … However, due to the outbreak of COVID-19 globally, governments found themselves compelled to abandon unethical profitable policies, albeit temporarily, to address the pandemic. Therefore, questions arise about the extent to which governments will adopt ethical economic policies… Will we be forced to live decades of austerity? … or [will this] be a start to normaliz[ing] moral economic measures?” 

Gad discussed the difficulty of the film’s production; a major factor being balancing his creative vision with public health regulations. In addition, he needed to follow academic guidelines from his module whilst accurately depicting the pandemic. Gad explained that opting for a smaller scope, he was able to meet all requirements. He commented: ‘‘I found out that tackling my questions and my feelings in a direct way would make a long didactic film, but I wanted it to be short and subtle; not to cover the weight of an entire pandemic but a very short story that overlaps with the pandemic. Thus, this was my starting point.

The film’s positive feedback has encouraged Gad to do more in film production. He recently returned to Egypt to undertake a new job as a Senior Media & Communications Officer at Sawiris Foundation for Social Development. He is keen to continue developing independent short documentary projects, as he aims to “harness [his] media practice in a way that could enable meaningful social change.”