85 Ramses St. Romancing the Nation
85 Ramses St.
Romancing the Nation
Cairo, Egypt 2019
(Work in Progress)
On March 12, 1979, Mounir Rafla, my father and son of pioneer Egyptian filmmaker Helmy Ralfa, was interviewed on Radio – Canada about his journey as a film producer from Egypt, to professor of Criminology at the Université de Montréal, to teacher and Director General at a Montreal Cegep. Segments of the interview have been transcribed throughout the site, alongside a series of photographs of the production office, which I took at 85 Ramses Street in Cairo, on May 21, 2019.
Memories of 85. Ramses St.
From Cairo, Egypt to Montreal, Quebec.
Our story.
The offices at 85 Ramses St. served as the main office for Helmy Rafla Films Inc. a film production company founded by my grandfather in the late 1940s. Mounir, my father, Helmy’s eldest son, was born in Cairo in 1933. He left Egypt in 1965 after Gamal Abdel Nasser’s government nationalized and confiscated their films, forcing the company into bankruptcy and my grandfather to dissolve his assets in order to serve as Chairman of the national film board of Egypt.
This is the story of my father’s journey from Cairo to Montreal, and in some way, the parallel story of my journey from Montreal to Cairo. Based on a Radio-Canada audio interview, I revisit my father’s life journey through space, objects and artifacts which I photographed in Cairo, at 85 Ramses St. in 2019.
Portrayed above: Helmy Rafla and Mounir Rafla.
“Il y a des souvenirs, surtout la façon d’exprimer les sentiments par des paroles qui relèvent un peu de la douleur, de la nostalgie, de tout ce qui entoure les sentiments amoureux de l’être. Et comme vous pouvez deviner les orientaux accentuent beaucoup les douleurs qu’ils éprouvent quand ils sont en état d’amour.”
Mounir Helmy Rafla (March 1979)
Projet en dévelopment // Project in Development.
PORTFOLIO 