2019 Winners & Shortlists

Write a short summary of what happens in the film.

Bassem, a 13 year old student surrounded by kids throwing away his pencil case to each other in middle of a school yard, then push him on the ground. Bassem thinking “That wasn’t the beginning”. The bell rings, It is finally time to go home, Bassem grabs his backpack and heads towards the stairs, he gets pushed intentionally from the back by 2 boys, although looking annoyed, he decides to ignore them and keep walking. The moment Bassem reaches the staircase’s end, the boys pulled his backpack, Bassem runs after them to get it back then he finds himself surrounded by a circle of kids who start taking out his prencil case and heedlessly throw it away. We see Bassem annoyed and helpless when a brave kid decides to break this circle by grabbing the pencil case and returning it to Bassem. Another girl gets encouraged as well to help.

Cultural/Context information for the jury

In Egypt, 70% of students of age 13-15 have been subject to bullying by peers. A joint study by the National Council for Childhood and Motherhood (NCCM) and UNICEF titled “Violence Against Children in Egypt”, has documented that physical violence among children (mainly friends) was commonplace, with 29% to 47% of children (ages 13-17) reporting being bullied at school. Bullying didn’t have a special term that kids can relate to. When conducting the focus groups, kids didn’t agree on a single term to describe this harmful behavior but when they were exposed to the term “Tanamor” (the Arabic equivalent of Bullying) they started using it right away as if they were searching for it!

Tell the jury anything relevant about the direction.

Our main objective was to get our audience away with a strong emotional response to bullying and get encouraged to do something against it. From the beginning, we show the intensity of this action on Bassem, how it affects him, but also the opportunity that all the bystanders around him have to do something to stop it. We had a long casting process trying to find our main characters, we needed them to be fresh faces and have good acting skills. Handheld camera technique and movements were used to show the intensity during the bullying action and then turning to smooth, stable camera movements when we revealing the right action. We believed it would give a feeling of contrast. We used anamorphic lenses to have a cinematic, dramatic effect. We chose the locations and wardrobe to be true to life and relatable to everyone across Egypt.