(Once Upon a Time in) 1931 {1931}

Khaled Hafez

Four stock footage sequences intertwine to tell a satire narrative that mingles fiction with reality of four different sopts in the world in 1931: Cairo, Transilvania, London and Hollywood. I rare stock documentary footage of cairo describes the life and times and struggle of the Egyptian population then against poverty, illiteracy and colonialism. During the very same time Dracula –the fiction-- makes his first appearnce from Transilvania to the silver screen, while another hollywood screen tale –the secret six—describes the secret gang wars in 1931 and consequently becoems one of the first banned/censured movies in film history. The three tales are held together by an ironic fourth tale’s timeline of some rare footage of the British featherwieght boxing chapionship of 1931, where the declared champion wins the title by cheating and carefully hitting below-the-belt three consecutive times far from the eyes of the juges.
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