EGYPT'S art students and their professors areapparently psychologically and sexually unhealthy. This scandalous portrayal, which has outraged members of Egypt's artistic community, is allegedly the main theme in the new local film Bel Alwan Al-Tabi'eya (In Natural Colours) starring Youssra el-Louzi, Karim Qassem and Farah Youssef, and directed by Osama Fawzi. The title of the film should suggest that it's based on life in local art colleges. As well as supposedly scandalising the students and professors, the movie suggests that many people in Egypt's predominantly Muslim society suspect that art in its various genres is religiously condemned. Teenagers sitting in the audience laughed heartily at the antics of the actors portraying corrupt, deviant professors. They'd rushed to the picture houses after being told that Bel Alwan Al-Tabi'eya was full of scenes, in which art students and professors ogle at almostnaked models posing for their portraits. Dean of the Faculty of Fine Arts of Helwan University Mohamed Mekawi sadly says: "[The film] is very disappointing and insulting." The disillusioned Dean denies that the movie is the fruit of responsible use of the freedom of expression in Egyptian society. "We [the faculty staff] support freedom of expression, as long as people use it wisely and sincerely," he stresses. Mekawi says that he wanted to have a cordial chat with the film's director and producer before they started shooting the movie. "We had to reject calls from the director and producer to film Bel Alwan Al-Tabi'eya at the faculty's campus, because they ignored our invitation, repeated several times, to sit down together and discuss the script," he discloses, indicating that they've been ‘stabbed in the back' by a former student, who did the script and produced the controversial movie, which was filmed in the Higher Institute of Applied Arts. Its allegedly sickening content has prompted students at the faculty to launch an online attack on the film, as well as the cast, while both students and staff staged a sit-in outside the faculty's principal building. A female undergraduate describes the film as an insincere portrayal of her faculty, ateliers, fellow students and professors. Alaa Mohamed Ali, an art students, told the press that it is disgusting for anyone to think that her professors and colleagues should act unethically inside the ateliers at the faculty. Her colleague, Mohamed Metwalli, secretary of the faculty's Student Union, denies that his faculty is a hotbed of unethical and immoral behaviour. Unlike the Dean of the Faculty of Fine Arts, his counterpart in the Higher Institute of Applied Arts appears to have enjoyed watching the film being shot. Professor Moustafa Hussein Kamal argues that Bel Alwan Al-Tabi'eya sheds light on the negative side of the education system, especially art education. "Many Egyptians wrongly believe that art is religiously condemned and that artists disrespect and disparage [the Muslim] faith," he comments.
