DoxBox 9
”Six Ordinary Stories” by Syrian director Meyar Al Roumi is a quite refreshing report on six ordinary taxi drivers and their work and life in Damascus. Ordinary, well also extraordinarily open they are as well as critical to the life that is offered to them. One has a double job as a fireman and a taxi driver in order to earn enough, another used to have a shawarma shop, be a creative person, a chef, whereas now he is not really appreciated, because ”anyone can drive a car”. A third one is a religious person, who drove a taxi also during his studies and now aims to be an imam… The taxi-driver-format is well known, and maybe the film is not to be considered a creative documentary, but a courageous one and funny it is in a country with censorship. The conclusion of this film: Life in Damascus, Syria is tough with low salaries for looong working days.
No female drivers of course, nothing about women in this film, but two other documentaries made up for that through a strong focus on women in the Arab countries. ”Women without Shadow” by Saudi Haifaa Al-Mansour, said to be the first female filmmaker in Saudi Arabia, is shocking to watch with its filming and interviews of women totally covered, either protesting against the position of women in the society or saying that this is how it is. This film is from 2005, the other one to be mentioned is ”In my Father’s House” by Dutch living Fatima Jebli Ouazzani, from 1997, awarded many times for its touching story about a woman (the director), who has not seen her father for 16 years because she did not marry according to Maroccan wedding rituals and rules, including being a virgin when she married. We attend a Dutch-Moroccan couple who marries in Marocco, we see wonderful scenes with Fatima and her grandparents, we see a small girl running after her father in the small streets of her childhood, and we hear the tragic story about her mother who passed away after having been left by a father, who took a new wife. The mix of documentary and fiction scenes are beautifully done, the film is an early demonstration of the docu-fiction that is so common today.
We take a taxi back to the hotel flying back tonite to Copenhagen with one day left of a very succesful festival. Thanks.
