Barsoum Looking for a Job
About Barsoum Looking for a Job
Barsoum, a Copt, and Sheikh Metwalli, a Muslim, are both out of work and hungry, and both want the same job at a bank. The manager mistakes them for rich businessmen and takes them home to a large lunch. When he learns who they are, he throws them out. They sit on the sidewalk with the meal finally in them, and a policeman arrests them.
Cast & crew
More about Barsoum Looking for a Job
Mohammed Bayoumi wrote, directed, produced, and photographed the short. Adel Hamid plays Barsoum. Bishara Wakim plays Sheikh Metwalli. It opened in Egypt on 31 December 1923. Bayoumi shows Barsoum praying before a picture of Saint Mary, with the crescent, the cross, and a photograph of Saad Zaghloul, leader of the 1919 revolution, in the same corner.
Themes
Background
The prayer corner puts the crescent, the cross, and Saad Zaghloul's photograph together, the unity slogan of the 1919 Egyptian revolution, still the political backdrop in 1923.
Making
Bayoumi shot it himself and used the lunch scene as the joke: the bank man is generous only while he thinks the pair are rich.
Look
Mohammed Bayoumi photographed it, including the straw den and the lunch table.
Music
Silent.
Preservation
A print survives. Wikimedia Commons holds a copy under the Arabic and English titles.
Notes
- Abdel Hamid Zaki plays the bank manager. Victoria Cohen, Ferdoos Hassan, and Ahmed Galal are also in the cast.
- Barsoum gathers newspapers a girl throws from a window. He sleeps on straw in an empty house.
- A boy who comes into that house is beaten by a man on the way out.
- At the lunch the two hungry men eat so fast they lift food toward the host and the girl at the table.
- The Arabic title is Barsoum yabhath 'an wazifa.
Scenes
- Barsoum prays under the picture of Mary, with the crescent, the cross, and Zaghloul's photograph.
- The manager serves a feast, then learns they are job-seekers and drives them out.
- A policeman takes them off the sidewalk after the meal.
Also available
- Wikimedia Commons (Barsoum Looking for a Job - برسوم يبحث عن وظيفة.webm)