Tahrir Cinema Needs You!

Tahrir Cinema is now moving in to its third week, and we are in a healthy rhythm in Cairo. If the sit-in / occupation of Tahrir continues through Ramadan, we wont have a problem running the cinema through the long, hot month thanks to the hard work of several very committed people.

But there is work to be done beyond Tahrir, in and outside of Cairo. We have begun, and are doing everything we can, but are acutely aware of what else needs to happen. And of how much help we need.

So I thought it would be useful to break down what we need help with, what you can do.

A cinema has already begun in Alexandria, screening on a public information board the revolutionaries hacked into in Saad Zaghloul Square.

We are hopeful that our friends in Asyut, Mansoura and Suez will also start screenings soon. But there is no limit to the number of places that could be screening footage (up to 80 million). So if you want to organize screenings, please do. It doesn't have to be a full-scale projection, any kind of public exhibition is useful.

Cut a deal with an qahwa, a sports club, a school. Anywhere. With Ramadan coming up we have people coming together across the country. Let's remind them what we're all fighting for, what we've already achieved. Let's help them relive the glorious days together, show them the truths that are being kept from them by State TV.

If you live in Cairo help us work outside Tahrir. We need to get this material seen in neighbourhoods across the city. We need to be up in Roxy. We need to be in Abassiya.

Wherever you are, write to me and we will work out how get you DVDs of material.

If you don't feel like organizing a screening, you can help us distribute DVDs, or help those with computers learn how to find relevant material on YouTube.

Or you can help us collect material. The Revolution was probably one of the most filmed events of all time. And, though it will be a nightmare to organize, I believe there is a value in every piece of camera phone footage. Who knows what's hidden within that frame, or what might become apparent when cut with another? So you can help us collect and organise that.

If you know how to edit material, then come and work at Mosireen. At the moment we're making data DVDs with clips of raw footage and just a little edited material. But we need to assemble more. Not to make any definitive historical documents, but to create acts of witness that can better communicate the key events of the Revolution to those who didn't live directly through them. This is cinema is communication, as testimony, as immediate engagement.

If you have films you've already made, send us a link, bring us a DVD. If, like the No to Military Trials campaign, you have a burning issue that you want to bring the screen, let us know.  

If you have design / digital development skills, there is always work to be done. On Tahrir Cinema and many other projects bound up in the same push towards utopian creativity and communalism, which I'll inevitably go into in this blog if I find more than five minutes a fortnight.

In other news: X Men First Class is total shit. Matthew Vaughn can't handle scale (his best film is the ultra-localized Kick-Ass), Henry Jackman's score rips melodies straight off Hans Zimmer's Thin Red Line score (who rips off Hans?),  and the previously edgy James McAvoy is now so mainstream English he's almost as rubberfaced as Hugh Grant/David Cameron (maybe Irvine Welsh will sort him out). Poor old Michael Fassbender looks like he's lost in a training exercise with first year drama students.

And, for the record, I watched it illegally online.Watch out, Potter.