I am the People

Streaming video - 2011

As the Egyptian people rise up in Tahrir Square, a rural community in the Nile valley follows the revolution on TV, radio and in the newspapers. Intimately shot over the three year period from the overthrow of Mubarak to the fall of Morsi, we are shown an alternate view of the revolution through the eyes of Farraj, his family, and friends as they make sense of and debate national politics...Through the experiences and voices of a community in the periphery, I Am the People presents a complex picture of the struggle for democracy in Egypt..."In this first feature, Anna Roussillon, a French citizen raised in Egypt, offers an important counterpoint to the spectacular images captured in Tahrir Square. In January 2011, when ten of thousands... of demonstrators took to Cairo's streets, the director started filming her friend Farraj and his family, peasants in the Luxor Valley. For two years, their television screens allowed them to follow the country's political upheavals, as it experienced an alternately enthusiastic and painful experiment with democracy. With wit, empathy and a powerful rapport with her subjects, the director makes us feel their hopes and disappointments. A superb lesson in humanity."— Charlotte Selb, RIDM more