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El Sebou'
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Secondary Title:
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- Egyptian Birth Ritual
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Filmmaker Name:
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Fadwa El Guindi
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Film Length:
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27 min
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Film Year:
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1986
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Duration:
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21-45 min
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Decade:
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1980s
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Series:
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Egypt series
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Color:
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color
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In Egypt, a birth ritual called el-sebou', meaning "the seventh", happens on the seventh day following the physical birth of a child of either sex and is celebrated by Coptic and Muslim families of all status groups, rural and urban. Characteristic of this ritual is the gender-linked imagery also manifest in the ritual clay pot. The ceremony celebrates the newborn's crossing a threshold from a neutral gender and status into a world of gender differentiation and family hierarchy. This particular sebou' is celebrated for twins, a boy and a girl, in a rising middle class Muslim family in urban Egypt.
Anthropologist Fadwa El Guindi portrays the sebou' ritual as a rite of passage with the universal three phases of transition (separation, liminality, incorporation) and as the key ceremony in an individual's life cycle until marriage. Focusing on — and showing the proveniences of — the variety of objects and materials, the film's perspective highlights the central role of the female ritual leader and provides a kinesthetic spatial sense of the ceremony. The editing combines both an analytic and an emic approach, allowing the participants to speak for themselves without losing a broader anthropological perspective.
Films in the Egypt series
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