2019 Winners & Shortlists

Write a short summary of what happens in the film.

A typical television-series trailer. The film begins with familiar faces of celebrities in a thriller-based scene, sitting on a round poker table, and titled 'An Unheard Noise.' In what appears to be a mafia-like gathering, the supporting actors appear to converse in a thrilling conversation about betrayal, murder and wicked intensions, the main hero appears in a mysterious manner from the dark shadows as he places his winning hand on the table. Starring in his new role, and to the audience's surprise, the hero appears to be Saad Samir, an Egyptian National-team football player. Through overdramatized acting skills, Samir conveys the dramatically dark role of the antagonist, concluding with an excessive evil laugh, as we hear the director shouting 'cut!' with overwhelmed satisfaction, of which the assistant director appears confused. The film concludes with a message of, 'those who can represent us in Russia, can represent us anywhere.'

Cultural/Context information for the jury

For Egyptians, Ramadan is all about television series. Anticipated by millions every year, the celebrities take over the screens of a nation as the stars of the season, making it the peak of television viewership. Bombarded by advertisements, series and shows, communication makes its way to viewers in an unparalleled manner. This year; however, was different. Egypt was taking part in the World Cup in Russia after 28 years, with the tournament scheduled to kick-off on the last day of Ramadan. With advertisements getting lost amidst the hundreds of television-series and excessive communication across all categories, the obvious trend was either to focus on a Ramadan insight, or football-based scene. To stand out, one would need to abuse the nation's love for football, television-series and Ramadan by creating the perfect fusion of showcasing another side of their 2018 stars.

Tell the jury about the casting process.

To ensure the realism of the series-like scenes, we needed real celebrities. Using the familiar faces of Egyptian television supporting actors, we were already half way there, matching each to the genre they usually star in. The real challenge was our main heroes. Using football players whose only experience behind the camera was on the field, in football context or advertising for a product/service, we needed to find the players who had certain attributes that were relevant to specific genres. Despite their poor and non-existing acting skills, appearance was key. Given Saad Samir's indicative facial expressions, all he needed was a slick suit, thriller-like lighting and the perfect set, to appear like most thriller villains dominating the screens do. Pushing him to exaggerate his performance, the mixture of his appearance and poor acting skills delivered the perfect scene our viewers were familiar to; with a twist of course.