case 404 this is a series whose protagonists are people with disabilities and dealing with exploitation, sexual abuse and verbal violence, among other hardships, suffered by this group in the country of the pharaohs, but one of the major obstacles it encountered in Egypt was distribution.

The fifteen episode series was released two weeks ago on social networks due to the difficulty for its broadcasting on television channels for the start of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, where stellar audiovisual products are traditionally showcased in the Arab world.

“The series is the first project of the‘ Parallel World ’initiative, which focuses on the inclusion of people with disabilities in audiovisual art and considers the first play in which the protagonists are actually people with disabilities“, featured the director and promoter of the initiative, Mohamed al Ansari.

Al Ansari, 32, got the idea for the series when he was doing free commercials for local NGOs working with people with disabilities, and that’s where he saw the reality of these people being “they are very talented, but they are very marginalized“.

“We thought of doing an awareness project that would address their problems and suffering for the media, because the media has a greater influence on society,” Ansari said.

Down’s Syndrome

case 404 includes 24 actors with disabilities, most of whom have Down syndrome, and reflects society’s view of this group as experiencing harassment, sexual abuse, exploitation and lack of opportunities.

certainly, the series title specifies the error message emitted by electronic devices when they need to be restarted.

“We want to convey that society needs to change its view of people with disabilities,” explained the director.

The series was scheduled to air last year, but could not be released due to lack of financing to finish post-production.

This is the first “Parallel World” project, whose defining feature is that the disabled themselves speak out about the evils they experience.

One of the protagonists is adham hosamwho participated in a “Parallel World” acting workshop two years ago and recently premiered a short film on Netflix.

Challenges for the series

The series is produced in a family environment, where the producers and protagonists, as well as their families, participate in their ideas and collaborate on spread the content using advertising campaigns on the streets of Cairo, where the project seems to have been well received by the citizens.

Until 2018, when Egyptian president Abdelfatah al Sisi officially announced the year of the disabled, the situation of this sector of the population, which is “completely marginalized”, was hardly discussed publicly in the country. .

The real challenge, however, is productiondue to the lack of material capacity and money to finance the series, hence “it started with medium tools and laptop assembly programs”, its authors admit.

Another challenge, still open, is find space on a television channel that transmits ita, because until now the series can only be seen on social networks.

Abás Ramez, scriptwriter of the series and also a disabled (deaf) person, insisted that at first they could not find producers to fund this drama which for them was “a tool to empower the socially disabled“.

So far, the cost of production has reached 950,000 Egyptian pounds (nearly 51,800 dollars), not counting the salaries of the actors, a money from the director’s family savings.

The first episode takes over 45,000 views on YouTube in the first five days of broadcast.

real shot

According to the director, the dramatic content of the series comes from meetings with more than 300 families of people with disabilitieswhere they confirmed that the two most common problems of this group were “harassment and labor exploitation”.

For this reason, this series is relevant for its main characters, who see it as “a real opportunity to show society their abilities,” as Said Mohamed Mahrus, a 22-year-old. old mentally handicapped actor and national swimming champion, to Efe. .

However, Mahrus recalled that the Film Institute, the largest image study center in the country, only students with disabilities are allowed to enter in 2018.

He was the first student with a disability to enter and only after obtaining unofficial “assistance”, something not available to other applicants in his condition, he acknowledged.

Source: EFE

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