Giant billboards surrounding the construction site trumpet the news.
“On this site, ” the sign proclaims in Arabic script, “is raising the building for the Censorship of Artistic Prods.”
Not exactly a “Coming Soon” notice to make a public agog with anticipation.
In fact, it seems to have left many Egyptians infuriated.
“A menace to the cinema and other arts,” said leading Cairo film critic Moustafa Darwish. “The government should be phasing out censorship, not enhancing it with this new building.”
Estimated cost of the eight-story edifice is about $6 million. It’s a project of the Culture Ministry, which is responsible for censorship of films, legit shows, recorded songs and videos.
“An appalling waste of money,” fumed another Egyptian journalist who asked: “What are they going to call that building when it’s finished: ‘ The Grand Palace of Censorship’?”
Its location is certainly grand. The building is going up on some of the choicest and most valuable real estate property in Cairo – a government-owned Nileside tract just adjacent to the Cairo Opera House, which is the centerpiece of a performing arts complex also containing a concert hall and theaters.
Thus, besides offering Egypt’s blue pencil brigade new offices with a panoramic Nile River view, the building will tower intimidatingly over the performing arts venues whose productions the censors might well be apt to cut.
Some have questioned whether the highly desirable property couldn’t have been put to much more profitable use as the site for a luxury hotel.
“Egypt is losing in every way,” said critic Darwish. “It is losing money to construct the building, losing valuable land, and losing the future by stifling artistic creativity.”
Besides modern offices, the building also will contain new film screening rooms, video facilities and music studios where singers can have lyrics and tunes considered by censors before recording sessions.
The censorship building is the cornerstone of a Culture Ministry project that goes by the somewhat Orwellian term “The Censorship Development Plan,” and also includes training programs for future censors at Cairo’s Academy of Fine Arts.
Variety