Feature Documentary
Total Budget
EGP 1,475,000
Confirmed Financing
EGP 200,000
Contact
ahmedsol@icloud.com
+16464726336
In a city that is unkind to the elderly, a group of men over sixty formed a water aerobics team; my father among them. Fifty Meters penetrates this world, reflecting on this generation’s life, their long past and short future.
In a quiet neighborhood in Cairo, a group of men over the age of 60 form a water aerobics team. For more than a decade now, the team members meet three days a week in Maadi Sports Club. This sport represents the only way to break their monotonous life and their constant feeling of loneliness. After his retirement, my father, Akram Khattab, joined the team and became one of its active members. The film follows these men during their training in a pool that does not exceed 50 meters in length. The slow movement of their scarred bodies, the hilarious tales of the past, and the heated childish conversations of current events, tell the story of the team's attempts to avoid the ghost of a looming end.
This film explores the space that I am trying to find as a woman in her mid-thirties among a group of men who reflect on their past life decisions with a mix of pride and regret. I reflect on my personal decisions and wonder about the future. The film approaches these men, and my father who comes at the heart of the journey. He spent his youth behind the camera, following me as a child playing gymnastics with my team, and now it is my turn to film him.
Fifty Meters is a way to explore concepts of authority, patriarchy and masculinity that are essential towards understanding this generation's life and its impact on my own.
My father always had a secret parallel life. He hasn’t been a traditional father who finishes his work and comes back home. He has always been surrounded by friends that we never met. I always imagined that he has a magical world full of adventures, outstanding characters, and exciting stories. I grew up looking forward to sharing this world with him. But I never did. We both grew older, and I lost interest in his shrinking life since his retirement — until he joined this energetic aerobics team a few years ago. He regained his exciting private life, and I regained my insecurities as a teenager. Fifty Meters comes as part of a bigger project that I have started since 2016. A project that is interested specifically in the elderly and and the concepts of growing old and confronting the life choices made when we were younger. Decisions we take in a cruel city ruled by a patriarchal society that judges life choices and puts a distance between oneself and one's true desires.
I share with my father the fear of getting old. I imagine myself a lonely, regretful old woman. I follow my father and his friends carefully and think about what I will be like when I grow up. I fear loneliness, health deterioration, and a monotonous life. I want to step into the team members’ narrow and secluded world. I want to share with them their own journey of reflections so that I may learn something about my own future journey.
I first met Yomna Khattab when she participated in a screenwriting workshop that I organized in Cairo. From day one, I knew that Yomna was a unique talent with her storytelling skills and complex characters. Not only does she write beautiful scenes and dialogue, but she also has something profound to say through her stories.
When I got to work as a screenwriter on a project that I felt would suit Yomna, I invited her to co-write with me and I witnessed first-hand how collaborative and talented she was.
Later, Yomna shared with me the treatment of her debut film as a director, and I insisted to produce it as I see great potential in helping her tell a story only she can tell. I was immediately taken by her striking concept, hard work and sincerity. I am confident she will bring a poetic sensibility to this documentary project. Telling a story about older men in her milieu , incorporating a female gaze into a male world intrigued me. The archival material that will be used in the film is a treasure. I am willingly prepared to support Yomna in her creative journey and it will no doubt be fun and fruitful.
TBD: Hamlet from the Slums by Ahmed Fawzi-Saleh
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