A broken refrigerator may not sound like a promising premise for a movie. But in the hands of blossoming Egyptian director Yasser Shafiey, it takes a different turn. Shafiey’s feature debut, Complaint No 713317, stems from something all too familiar.
It tells the story of an ageing Cairo couple as they battle for months with a corrupt maintenance company over the repair of their fridge. This dark comedy feels like something Terry Gilliam or Franz Kafka might’ve dreamt up.
Better yet, Shafiey’s film came from his own experience with an Egyptian company.
“They took the fridge but, just like in the movie, came back with it broken,” Shafiey tells The National.
Complaint No 713317 stars two of Egypt’s greats, Mahmoud Hemida and Sherine, who play leads Magdy and Sama respectively, and are acting together for the first time in their careers. Hemida, famed for his role in Youssef Chahine’s 1997 historical drama Destiny, was Shafiey's first choice.
Meanwhile, Sherine – beloved for her role in TV series Grand Hotel – was another must-get. “She is like all our mothers in Egypt,” Shafiey says. “She has not acted for many years as a lead in films, so it’s a comeback for her.”
While Egyptian comedies don’t often travel outside the country, Complaint No 713317 has a real chance to go far.
“It’s a universal, everyday story,” says the director. “I've been told so in every country I’ve visited, including by the audience in Malta’s Mediterrane Film Festival last month.”
The humour will also feel familiar to those who like their comedy midnight-black. “My producer said to me when he read the script that I have a similarity in voice to Aki Kaurismaki,” says Shafiey, alluding to the Finnish filmmaker behind deadpan comedies such as The Man Without a Past and Fallen Leaves.
Certainly, audiences will recognise those deeply frustrating moments, dealing with soulless corporations and being put on hold for hours.
Shafiey’s own experience, living without this most basic of appliances for what turned out to be months on end, led him to feel an increasing sense of anger and helplessness. So how did he cope? “I wrote this film,” he says with a sigh.
As the film’s couple butt heads with the maintenance company’s manager (veteran comedienne Enaam Salousa) and off-piste technician (Mohamed Radwan), the story also comes across as a study on marriage, as the cracks start to show in the retired couple’s relationship, with Shafiey steering the film’s third act towards increasingly absurdist terrain.
Shafiey, who has studied applied arts at Helwan University in Cairo and has worked as a jewellery designer and as technical support for CNC machines, has been developing this style since his early prize-winning shorts: The Dream of a Scene, Intense Practice To Improve Performance and The Man Who Swallowed the Radio.
So what inspires this absurdist streak? “We live in absurd times!” he says with a shrug.
Coincidentally, getting the film made has been almost as frustrating as getting his fridge fixed. It took three years just to get the project under way as the director submitted the film for grants and funds.
“At the time, I told myself: 'No, I will not make a film again, that’s enough, I will change my career.' But, eventually, I was lucky to find a production company that loved this project,” he says.
After having its premiere in Cairo and featuring in the prestigious Rotterdam Film Festival, in the Bright Future strand, earlier this year, Complaint No 713317 is set to return to the region for further runs on the festival circuit.
