The Betrayed Square

MML collective / Switzerland, Poland / 2018 / World Premiere / 45 min.

synopsis

The Arab Spring of 2011. Day after day, thousands of young Egyptian protesters flooded Tahrir Square in Cairo. Poet and sound artist Stéphane Montavon assembled a psychedelic collage composed of freely accessible images of the revolution, adding an acoustic probe full of tension, rebellion and aggression of the repressive forces. The revolutionary turmoil is expanded into a sonic dimension of auteur installation. It is an impressive story of symbolic moments of ecstatic struggles for democracy and a new Constitution. It exposes mottos, protesters’ slogans and dialogues of the massacred victims. The images of repressive government forces are confronted with everyday life. On a cold morning, the betrayed revolution melts into a day-to-day routine.

"Rebuilding the revolution with found footage reminds us not only of the past fight, but most importantly of the Egyptian’s revolutionary will still awaiting to be accomplished." Maciej Madracki, Michał Mądracki, MML collective

biography

The MML Collective (2008) features Swiss filmmaker, graphic artist and illustrator Gilles Lepore (1972) and two brothers: Polish novelist and screenwriter Michał Mądracki (1979) and filmmaker, film critic and film direction graduate from Katowice Film School Maciej Mądracki (1984). His film Work of the Machines screened at Ji.hlava IDFF in 2010. Stéphane Montavon is an author of dozens of sonic and audiovisual installations.