The Noise of Cairo

It's a beautiful documentary that discusses the relationship between art, society and politics. Through the interviews with various artists, we know in detail about artists' life and practice under the drastic change of the Arab Spring revolution in 2011. The turnover of the Mubarak regime frees up space for artists, along with other normal people to express themselves. However, this freedom is not absolute or guaranteed. When artists challenge the army force, they still get arrested and tortured. The documentary was shot during a time of transition, just after the revolution, when the old is collapsing but not yet fully collapsed, while the new is forming yet has not come.

One inspiring point that the director made during this documentary is that change does not happen by making one authoritarian leader go away. It needs to happen in a system. People who doubt that revolution could never happen are empowered by the possibility of making change. Such hope shall never fall.

I am thirst for a more in-depth analysis and reflection that explains the reason of the revolution, though this might not be this documentary's focus. It's focus is more on the artistic expressions. The song of the women artist when it approaches the end is very beautiful. In all, it's a movie that raise the visibility of artists' presence in society.