Ahmed Magdy Essam Eldin

The project of Ahmed Magdy from Alexandria was selected in the competition “Road to Germany”, organized by the Goethe-Institut in partnership with UNA Academy.
His workshop was dealing with documentary filmmaking focusing especially on projects with a very low or no budget at all.

Successful workshop applicants mainly needed to have the passion for documentary filmmaking and the desire to continuously learn from reality and life to develop patterns of expression. Regardless of the available resources - which undoubtedly became cheaper and more established compared to twenty or thirty years ago - the workshop focused on the research and planning process associated with the different film styles prior to the production phase. During this part participants were supported with general consultation and recommendation for the script writing process as well as the production and post-production stages. The motto and goal of the training was that each and every one would be able to learn the technique they want to in a month only.

Ahmed’s vision for conducting the workshop was mainly inspired by two issues: On the one hand, the fact that the average person searching for truth is usually lost due to a lack of trusted information sources and their inexperience in neutral and unprejudiced research. While, on the other hand, there are difficulties faced by documentary filmmakers regarding the complexity of film economics, in what concerns learning processes, production and screening options. In addition comes the lack of control in the documentary genre.

Currently, Ahmed is working on a biographic documentary film about the Alexandrian novelist Prof Mona Salem. He is further exploring the possibility of collaboration with one of the local theatre groups as part of a larger project, which is documenting the literary and theatrical movement in Alexandria and the lives of its actors.