Ferkesh Live: Egyptian Music Video Directors on Visual Storytelling

CairoScene

2 days ago

Ferkesh Live: Egyptian Music Video Directors on Visual Storytelling
SceneNoise and Mazra'a Network, in collaboration with Red Bull, kicked off the first edition of Ferkesh [Live] at the French Institute in Mounira. The event brought together a focused circle of filmmakers, directors, and artists to reflect on the visual direction of Egypt's music scene—how it's being shaped, and who's shaping it.
At the core of the evening was a panel discussion moderated by Youssef Mansour (founder and director of Mazra'a Network for Art and Culture). Directors Marwan Tarek, Mazen Bayoumi, and Zeina Aref broke down their working methods, revealing a process that's often less about chasing spectacle and more about negotiating form, limitations, and intent.
Marwan Tarek, whose credits include El Waili and Kaim Osama's Nazlet Seman, described his approach with quiet clarity: the music comes finished, and the video builds from there. 'In music videos, it's different,' he said. 'I treat the track like a script. The artist has already completed their creative process, the sound is locked. So the question becomes: how do you see the track?' For Tarek, directing isn't just interpretation, it's construction. 'If you gave the same track to five different directors, you'd get five entirely different videos.'
A cinematographer by training, Mazen Bayoumi, who's shot videos for Nour (Nogoum, Wana), Dirty Backseat, and Felukah, Bayoumi doesn't always begin with a concept, sometimes he just puts the track on loop and waits for it to unlock something. 'You listen and listen until images start showing up,' he said. 'Sometimes it's a flicker, sometimes it's a dead end. But one day, you hear it differently. And that version, that hearing, that's the one that sticks.' For Bayoumi, ideas aren't found so much as tripped over.
Then there's Zeina Aref, a multidisciplinary artist, photographer, and director, who describes a slightly more grounded but no less poetic view of the process. Her collaborations with Ma-Beyn and Massar Egbari often feel stitched together with raw fabric: grainy, intimate, unvarnished. 'My favorite part is the craft,' she said. 'The early dreaming phase, building the story, drawing it out with the team.' But then, like a sudden cut to static: the budget hits. 'And all our ambitions get thrown in the trash.' You could hear the collective exhale from the crowd, filmmakers know this beat too well. And yet, Aref insists that these limitations don't just destroy dreams, they reshape them. 'That part where everyone's ideas meet the real world? That's where the actual magic can happen. If it's going to work, it has to work there.'