Exchange of experiences central when Egyptian faculty visit Stockholm

Egypt has, in many ways, a storied past when it comes to film. Its film industry has been a dominant force in both the Arab world and in Africa for over a century. And yet, there are few fields that are changing as rapidly as the film – something that people in the Egyptian film industry are certainly cognizant of.

“A transition is coming to the film industry,” says Yasser Elshamy, Dean of the College of Language and Communication at AASTMT. “Different generations of filmmakers are on the way, and they have to learn to work with new technologies.”

In many ways, it’s an ideal time to launch a new degree programme in film. The AASTMT – primarily a technical university – has just been through the process of creating an entirely new organizational structure, the College of Art and Design, and in it a completely new programme in Film and Visual Art. And of course, technology takes a central position there, too.

“We want to be able to use new sciences and new approaches in all phases of film,” explains Yasser Elshamy, “like AI and virtual studios, from pre-production to post-production.”

It’s an interest shared by many in the subject area Film and Media at SKH. And, in fact, as the new programme has taken form, it’s continually been with input from Stockholm – a series of cooperation projects that stretch back nearly a decade. Representatives from the two universities have repeatedly travelled to each other’s universities, observed teaching methods and exchanged experiences. In the runup to the creation of the programme, SKH faculty members have helped brainstorm curriculums and study plans, suggesting tweaks based on what they’ve known works locally.

Training junior staff

Another part of the co-operation programme is student exchange – and it actually started before the new programme had any students to send. In the spring of 2023, two Literature and Film studies students – Howaida Abdelshafi and Salma Mohsen – did their final projects at SKH, Salma as a film editor and Howaida as a rotoscoping artist. Both have now been hired as teaching assistants in the new College, using the experience from their exchange term to help the incoming student groups.

“It was a big opportunity for us,” says Howaida Abdelshafi. “I took a lot of the knowledge with me, and I made a lot of memories and new friendships.”

Howaida Abdelshafi, Thomas Brennan, Yasser Elshamy, Amira Ehsen, Salma Mohsen and Moustafa Elshaarawy. Photo: Johan Palme/SKH

In August, they visited SKH again together with another teaching assistant, Moustafa Elshaarawy, presenting to the students in Stockholm and bringing more experiences to help their work back in Cairo.

“It’s been instructive to see how students here do their workflow, in for instance post-production,” says Moustafa. “It’s important to see in person how they practice their art on their equipment, you can’t really do that remotely.”

Thomas Brennan, Assistant Lecturer of Post-production at SKH, thinks that students at SKH have every potential to benefit from the exchanges as well – despite the current rules of the exchange programme prohibiting students from the European partner to do part of their studies at the non-European partner university.

“This exchange exposes teachers and students at SKH to this huge other culture and tradition, which has incredible stories to tell,” says Thomas Brennan. “It allows us to be exposed to their very unique experiences and pierce the bubble that can sometimes form in a university setting.”

“Diversity is a major strength of Egyptian cinema,” says Amira Ehsen, Vice-Dean of the newly-formed College of Art and Design at AASTMT. “There are 100 million people in Egypt, providing a rich material to use in both fiction and non-fiction. It’s like ten different societies in one, each with their own visuals, different symbols, different clothes.”

Resources and possibilities

At the same time, there’s often a distinct lack of resources to tell these stories compared to Sweden. Faculty travelling to Egypt from Sweden will often have to go from teaching maybe four students at a time to a big classroom of 40 – which brings additional challenges but also helps hone teaching methods, Thomas Brennan explains.

Another major difference is in the very sharp specialisation that SKH has for its film students, which doesn’t exist in Egypt at all. There, everyone in the film industry has to be prepared to shoulder all sorts of tasks. That, too, is something where both sides can learn from each other.

“In Egypt we have to wear many hats, everyone has to have general knowledge,” says teaching assistant Salma Mohsen. “One thing I can see works well here is that people are allowed to dig deeper into becoming, for instance, a good editor, and focus only on that.”

“I think our students would benefit from learning how to work with few resources,” says Thomas Brennan. “We have a lot of equipment available here, a lot of expensive technology, and it would open the students mind creatively to not just have everything available when they want it, but to have to adapt and improvise.”

The exchange project is now continuing, and SKH is continuing to support the developments at AASTMT. In 2027, two of the final-year students of the first cohort of the new Film and Visual Art programme will be doing their final projects as exchange students at SKH. Meanwhile, the two schools are looking to apply for yet another exchange period, with equally lofty plans.

“We’re applying for a new, capacity building project,” says Thomas Brennan. “We’re supporting AAST in also developing a Master programme!”