Egypt, Germany, Arabic - 80 min
Feature Documentary
TOTAL BUDGET
€165,000
CONFIRMED FINANCING
€75,000
Primary Contact
hala.samira.lotfy@gmail.com
+201227418314
philippraube@gmail.com
+4915125225453
When asked to play himself for the camera, a bodyguard from Cairo thinks he owns the frame and fills it with his everyday raw masculine performance, without being aware that the filmmaker has completely different intentions.
Yehia embodies a hyper-masculine image of power and violence. After his release from prison, he wants to be there for his wife and boys. He quits illegal business and works as a bouncer; a service-oriented security job that requires him to control his inherent anger. He pursues an acting career, but is always stereotyped and cast as a background actor.
When he is approached by filmmaker Mustapha who wants to film him, the proposed project gives him his 60 seconds of fame. He knows Mustapha wants to make 'something raw' and, playing himself for the camera, he's ready to give him that.
Through the filming process, different performances of manliness are juggled. Shedding layers of fascination, anger, obsession, male health, a complex relation with religion and the state, being someone's father and someone's son; Yehia keeps on hiding behind his tough masculine exterior. But so does Mustapha, behind the camera, equally struggling to perform and hide his insecurities of manliness, making it clear that both men suffer under their society's expectations of masculinity.
Big Boys Don't Cry is a cinema vérité film that includes both the story and the form through which it's told in its narrative structure. It paints a portrait of its protagonist as he constructs his masculine identity, performs it, and hides his vulnerability behind it. This is brought to the screen through the journey and the dynamics between him and the filmmaker who subjectively observes, interacts, and reflects on himself, both as a doubtful artist and an insecure man.
When I was a little boy, I was more sensitive and fragile than my peers. I would daydream for hours, stay silent most of the time, and sometimes break into tears for no reason. I was always told to “man up,” even if this meant to be violent and suppress my sensitivity.
Bodyguards are men just like me, raised according to false standards of what society believes is ‘manly’ with toxic gendered stereotypes they are expected to live up to. They earn their living by performing the exaggerated version of these stereotypes.
What does being a man mean? Is it something you are born with, actively learn, or passively acquire? I wanted to make a film about how masculine identity is constructed and performed, what forms of vulnerability are masked behind it, and how destructive it can become.
As a filmmaker, I’m concerned with cinematic form. Since the protagonist’s constant performance and dream to act implied a complex relation with the camera, I began to question myself and my camera. Am I capturing his reality or is it just another layer of his masculine performance?
I decided to step in, subjectively observe and linger, provoke and stage, and use roleplaying and re-enactments to see beyond the performance as I participate and reflect on myself.
I discovered that the filmmaking process takes me to male-dominated territories I never accessed before. The power dynamics between us, when included in the narrative, become significant and character-revealing for him, as well as for me.
The film approaches the paradox between the outer tough masculine exterior and the underlying fragile tension inside. It tackles themes around the masculine body, and how the obsession with the body becomes a tool of competition, survival, control, and selfassurance. On the other hand, it becomes a tool of self-destruction, and a heavy burden that masks a man's fear from his surroundings and himself.
Spending a considerable amount of time in the initial research, preparations, and in finding the most suitable structure for the project, lots of field work has already been done among the group of bodyguards in their own local neighborhoods where poverty doesn't leave young men with lots of options. It is either a conservative, radical religious extremism, or the complete opposite of living wildly, indulging in nightlife and drug abuse.
Through mixing the cinema-vérité style and method—where the filmmaker also participates and provokes—the audience is able to delve inside the alpha male psyche without condemning or sympathizing.
The film opens a missing, yet important, discussion about the distortions of the male gender role in Egypt and worldwide, and how this can be traced back to the economic crisis and the increasing class differences. Encouraging men to speak about vulnerability, fragility and insecurities regarding their manliness will enable us to understand the roots of misogyny and violence against women. This can also be traced back to the men's low self-confidence, and the huge burden thrown over their shoulders by their own societies.
Hala Lotfy
2018: Ext. Night
2017: Little Eagles
2012: Coming Forth by Day
Phillip M. Raube
2020: Tala‘Vision
2020: Reset
2020: Remo, Meister der Keulen
2020: Freizeit
2018: Swimming
2017: Wilkinson, Share the Legacy
2017: Volkswagen epochen film
2016: Little America
2015: House of War