South African documentary filmmaker Francois Verster’s new film The Dream of Shahrazad has been selected for the Masters programme of the 2014 edition of the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA), which takes place from 19 to 30 November.
While the film was largely self-funded, further funding contributions came from the South African National Film and Video Foundation, the IDFA/Bertha Fund, the Sundance Documentary Fund, Spier Films, the CBA Worldview Fund, the Netherlands Film Fund and the European Union.
The festival describes this section as “presenting the cream of the crop of new films by renowned documentary auteurs such as Frederick Wiseman, Victor Kossakovsky and Kim Longinotto.” It is the first time that a South African filmmaker has been selected in the section.
The Dream of Shahrazad, described by early viewers as a documentary masterpiece looks at recent political events in Egypt and Turkey through the lens of the famous story collection known as The 100 Nights. The film is an observational documentary, concert film and political essay which uses the metaphor of Shahrazad (the princess who saves lives by telling stories) to explore how creativity and political articulation coincide in response to oppression. A Turkish youth orchestra conductor uses Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade suite as a tool for political education. A young Lebanese actress reconciles her past by becoming an internet activist in Egypt. An older visual artist finds his “dream of Shahrazad’ in the appearance of a beautiful young storyteller. An Alexandrian storyteller meets with the mothers of martyrs of the revolution and turns their testimonies into new storytelling performances.
Development on the film began in 2006, and filming took place over two years between 2010 and 2012 – before, during and after the so-called “Arab Spring”.
“This has been the film that has taken the most time and has been most difficult to complete – the challenge was not only to film in three foreign countries where I did not at first speak any of the language, but also to construct a film around a specific piece of music, where documentary reality had to be fitted to a predetermined form,’ says Verster.
“The film started with very little means, but we made amazing contacts as we went along and the film grew organically into its final form. We kept returning to Egypt over the year following the January 2011 revolution, and being able to explore all the immense changes happening through friends and subjects there was one of the most fascinating and enriching experience of my life.”
The film ends with General Abdel Fattah el Sisi coming to power after August 2013.
For more information on the film, visit the official website.
