CAIRO, 2 January 2006 — A young man on the back of a Cairo bus kisses and gropes the woman next to him as he peels off her head scarf.
The scene from an independent film about double standard in Egypt shows little nudity but provokes gasps of surprise from the audience.
Director Ahmed Khaled’s 14-minute film, “the Fifth Pound”, follows the weekly bus journey of a young man and woman who dodge the suspicious glances of other passengers and exploit the unused back seats to indulge in physical intimacy.
Cairo has a long-established film industry and is traditionally regarded as the center of Arab artistic production but themes linking sex and religion remain largely untouched by film makers in the Islamic nation.
In Khaled’s film, the driver — who acts conservative — smokes and steals glances in his rear-view mirror of the young man and the woman.
Khaled says most venues in Egypt, the Arab world’s most populous nation, have refused to show his film because its subject matter could draw criticism in a country where the veil is seen by many as the height of female respectability.
But many young Egyptians say the setting is entirely realistic.
They say use of public buses as a setting for romantic encounters is so common the air-conditioned vehicles favored by couples have earned the nickname “mobile beds”.
“The film is about double standard in our society, about how people try to portray themselves in one way and then behave in a different conflicting way,” said Khaled, who financed much of the film with his own money.
“There are a lot of things that happen in Egyptian society that Egyptians don’t like to talk about,” he added.
