Adham Center News

Documentary Filmmaker Hosted by Adham Center

The Adham Center for Television Journalism joined last October with the school of Business, Economics and Communication to host Jehane Nujaim, the award-winning documentary filmmaker, who screened her highly praised documentary Startup.com at AUC's Jameel Center auditorium.

Since the documentary is focused on the rise and fall of the dot.com industry in America, this film was as much of interest to students and teachers in management and economics as to those in television journalism.

Startup.com, which won the Director's Guild award for best documentary in 2002 and the International Documentary Award in Los Angeles that same year-as well as enthusiastic reviews in the New York Times, New Yorker, and Entertainment Weekly-evolves basically around the idea of friendship and business. There is high tension for the viewer as she watches how friendship and business intertwine and conflict at the same time.

Nujaim was able to capitalize in her film on the rise and popularity of the dot.com industry in America at that time because she filmed the documentary at the height of the dot.com craze, when everybody in the US wanted to invest in dot.com startups. Her story then is not just a dramatic documentary but a historical document of the time.

Following the dream of two friends who want to make it big in the Internet world, and for a while do so, this film deals with vital issues such as money, friendship, and the breakdown of mutual concern and love.

The filming and editing of the documentary took one and a half years. During that time, Nujaim spent all of her time with the two characters; pursuing every move they made and practically living their life day and night. It was a success largely due to her diligence, sincerity, and dedication.

Adham Center director Abdallah Schleifer, introducing Nujaim to the audience at the screening, observed that, "Startup.com is one of the few documentaries that have ever received theatrical distribution-in other words one of the few documentaries to be shown in ordinary movie theaters, not just art houses."

After the screening, Nujaim said, "It is difficult to show the film here (in Egypt) because people are not used to watching documentaries. It would be targeted at specific audiences such as businessmen, internet users, people working with this sort of technology."

She also confessed how difficult it is to be detached and that you have to be "out of it. I had a responsibility not to get involved," even though she was a school colleague of Kaleil's and a friend of Tom's - the characters that the film revolves around.

Jehane Nujaim was not in Cairo only to screen Startup.com at the Cairo Film Festival, she was also completing the editing of her latest documentary, Control Room for which Schleifer is the executive producer. Late in January 2004 Control Room had its premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in the USA, where it received a standing ovation.

Nujaim is an Egyptian-American who studied visual arts and philosophy at Harvard. Her family lives in Cairo and she lives in New York.

By Azza Enanie