The film Cabaret Crusades: The Path to Cairo is the latest part of Wael Shawky’s project dedicated to the Crusades, reinterpreted according to Arabic chronicles and historical documents. The source material for the screenplay was Amin Maalouf’s book The Crusades Through Arab Eyes. This hour-long film covers events during the 48 years from the end of the first crusade in 1099 until the beginning of the second in 1147. The film adheres to puppet-show conventions, and contains elements of musicals, popular science programmes, nativity plays, and even horror films. It was made thanks to the artist’s cooperation with a group of over 200 people: musicians, pyrotechnicians, and puppet-makers. All the puppets used in the film (more than 130 figures of Christians, Muslims, kings, caliphs, popes, martyrs and saints) were made at workshops in Provence according to the 18th-century santon technique used to produce clay puppets for nativity plays. The film was recorded at Aubagne Cathedral and premiered at dOCUMENTA 13 in Kassel.
Wael Shawky, Cabaret Crusades: The Path to Cairo, duration: 61’, 2012
