Marina Gioti, The Invisible Hands, 2017, Egypt/Greece, 93 min.
In English and Arabic with English and Greek subtitles
Maverick underground American/Lebanese musician and ethnomusicologist Alan Bishop (of the bands Sun City Girls and Sublime Frequencies) lands as a stranger in Cairo, soon after the 2011 revolution, and teams up with three young Egyptian musicians in order to translate some of his old songs into Arabic. Under Bishop’s mentorship, this unlikely collaboration transforms into a band, The Invisible Hands. Structured around fly-on-the-wall scenes, archival ghost apparitions, absurd cameos, and poetic diary narrations by Bishop, and unfolding between the two critical elections that marked the period after the “Arab Spring” in Egypt, the film juxtaposes the tragicomedy of politics and art-making in a troubled periphery.
With: Alan Bishop, Aya Hemeda, Cherif El Masri, and Adham Zidan
Direction, story, editing: Marina Gioti; Poetry and prose: Alan Bishop; Cinematography, co-direction: Georges Salameh Producers: Marina Gioti and Georges Salameh; Executive Producer: Athina Rachel Tsangari
A Vertiginous Production, co-produced with Haos Film, supported by documenta 14
Premiere screening with the director Marina Gioti, followed by a concert by the band The Invisible Hands from Cairo and a DJ set by Spyros Zoupanos (intersonik.net).
