Cairo Filmmakers Screen Images of Revolt on the President\'s Wall

Danya Nadar, Mosireen Egyptian activists screened video documenting attacks on protesters on a wall of the presidential palace in Cairo on Sunday.

Activists from Mosireen, a Cairo film collective dedicated to documenting the continuing Egyptian revolution, set up a projector outside the presidential palace on Sunday night and showed video shot at the same location last week during street battles between opposition protesters and Islamist supporters of President Mohamed Morsi.

سينما التحرير تعرض مشاهد من معر كة الأربعاء الأسود على سور القصر
#الاتحادية http://t.co/Ype5HYqv

- Ghada Shahbender (@ghadasha) 9 Dec 12

Omar Robert Hamilton, a leader of Mosireen, said that the screening on the palace wall began with footage of the clashes that started when members of the Muslim Brotherhood attacked a sit-in there on Wednesday. That report includes some graphic images from a field hospital, where protesters were treated for injuries, including gunshot wounds, inflicted by the Islamists.

A Mosireen video report on deadly street fighting in Cairo last week, after a sit-in outside the presidential palace was attacked by Muslim Brothers.

The screening then moved on to a brief video clip of a man on the Islamist side firing a shotgun at protesters, followed by a moving interview with the father of a 16-year-old activist known as Jika who was killed in protests last month, and images of the young man's funeral.

An interview with the father of Jika Salah, a young man who was killed last month during anti-Morsi protests.

Du ring recent protests and the fighting last week, opposition activists chanted “Jika! Jika!” in honor of the young martyr to their cause.

“Then,” Mr. Hamilton told The Lede in an e-mail on Monday, “we switched and starting showing older films about the Army, because there are a lot of people at the palace sit-in who have never come to protests before and are only out because they're scared of the Muslim Brotherhood.” A lot of those new protesters, Mr. Hamilton said, voted for Ahmed Shafik, the retired general who lost to Mr. Morsi, “and are under the false impression that the Army is the only institution that can ‘save' them.”

M ai Saad, Mosireen Video documenting Egypt's revolution was screened on a wall of the presidential palace in Cairo on Sunday night.

The activists projected two Mosireen video reports on abuses by the Egyptian Army during the period of direct military rule: “The Maspero Massacre: What Really Happened,” on the killing of mainly Christian protesters outside the state broadcasting center in Cairo 14 months ago, and “Four Days of Death in December,” on soldiers attacking activists one year ago. Both include harrowing and very graphic scenes of wounded and dead civilians.

“The Maspero Massacre: What Really Happened,” Mosireen's video report, filmed in Octobe r 2011.

The Mosireen report, “Four Days of Death in December,” on attacks on protesters in December 2011.

The screening concluded with a recent interview with Mohamed Abdel Quddous, a journalist and liberal member of the Muslim Brotherhood who opposed the Islamist president's recent decree exempting his own decisions from judicial review.

A Nov. 26 interview with Mohamed Abdel Quddous, a journalist and liberal member of the Muslim Brotherhood.

In addition to street screenings, which began in Tahrir Square last year, and their popular YouTube channel, the Mosireen filmmakers are also trying to raise awareness of events in Egypt by distributing their video files directly to people's phones. On Sunday night, Mr. Hamilton said, “We also used a new machine we've just bought which sends files onto people's phones through Bluethooth.”