The Square is one of the first documentaries to show the full breadth of how technological advances are aiding documentary cinema. We talked to Jehane Noujaim about how he documented Egypts revolutionary moment.
Here at Tribeca, were interested in delving into the myriad ways in which improving digital technology - cheaper and better-quality cameras, easier-to-use editing software, and the like - facilitates the ease of making independent cinema. Yet its easy to forget that for all the ways in which these changes are rocking the narrative world, the documentary world is being equally impacted.
Take the case of Jehane Noujaims The Square, which premiered at Sundance this past January. Charting the travails of the revolutionary moment in Egypt (which found its base camp at Tahrir Square, from which the film takes its title) over the course of the past few years - through their protests against Hosni Mubarak, the ensuing military junta, and then Mohammed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood - the film provides a visceral portrait into what its like to be in the midst of real revolutionary goings-on, with protests, street violence and danger being all-pervasive elements.
The rawness and verisimilitude of the filmmaking recalls nothing so much as, perhaps, Battle of Algiers, Gillo Pontecorvos fiction film about the French occupation of Algeria, in its palpable authenticity. Much of the verisimilitude is due to the fact that Noujaims camera constantly places the viewer in the midst of the tensest and most emotionally charged political moments in the square, present for all of the arguments, fights and confrontations with authorities.
This was enabled - as Noujaim discusses in the below interview - by the fact that cameras like the 5D are simple enough that anyone can use them, even in extremely tense situations where filming is more of an afterthought than the main purpose. As this ease of filming increases even further, we can expect documentaries to become increasingly stunning as cameras can now be operated in situations in which filmmaking was previously simply too complicated to be carried out. I spoke with Noujaim about this exciting development, and more.
Tribeca: How did you come to find the subjects for your documentary?
Jehane Noujaim: They were all sleeping next to me in the square! You choose your characters because you fall in love with them, because youre going to spend at least a couple years of your life with them, so theyd better be people that you feel like youre going to learn from. My friend was making a news piece about Ahmed Hassan, one of our main subjects, so I met him and found him incredibly charismatic. He has the ability to use his passion and voice and intelligence to gather crowds around him and debate subjects in a way they were never debated before. I mean, I grew up in an Egypt where you could not talk politics to a random person in the street without having a hesitation or hiding what you really felt. There was a strong fear. Part of the revolution was about getting rid of that fear.
Just because you can film something - I mean, just because you have a pen doesnt make you a writer.
Magdy Ashour I met because he was sleeping in the tent next to ours. He was getting into long conversations with Pierre Seyoufr, who owns the apartment building next to the square. Pierre is someone Ive known for a long time and I started going up to his apartment and meeting many journalists there, and recording some fascinating conversations. He opened his apartment to all the young revolutionaries, he allowed the news networks to film off of his balcony. He also hung the list of the protesters demands off of his balcony, so everyone could see them. Anyway, Magdy had been loyal to the Muslim Brotherhood for 25 years, and he got into some very interesting conversations with Pierre, who is a Coptic Christian, and Magdy became a fascinating character - he had to make a decision between the Muslim Brotherhood, which had supported him financially for 25 years, and the will of the people, when the Brotherhood began to come to power and he saw them putting their political power over the will of the people.
Tribeca: This being a contemporary revolution, it was interesting because not only did you have the power to record what was going on, but your subjects did as well, with their camera phones. How does that affect the exertion of political will, when the subjects are all empowered filmmakers?
Jehane Noujaim: Well, all of the subjects were effectively filmmakers, yes. I mean, Ahmed picks up a camera in the film, he uses the 5D in the film and ended up shooting about a quarter of the film - a lot of the most intense footage from the front lines is footage he shot, because he learned from our DP how to use the camera. We were all there for the purpose of changing our country, and we happened to be making a film, but there were also times where we were filming as activists, since if you filmed some atrocity that was happening, you were a witness, and we were witnesses as filmmakers and our characters were witnesses. There was also a sharing of footage between people - if we filmed something that could be used as evidence or that was important to be seen, that footage was online that evening. There was a beautiful generosity on all sides because we were fighting for something bigger than ourselves.
Tribeca: You mention that at times you felt like an activist who happened to be there filming, rather than primarily there as a filmmaker. How do you feel like the technological progress in digital cinema has enabled such a thing to occur? I mean, with the ease of digital tools today, you can film while protesting with less effort than may have been required in the film era.
Jehane Noujaim: Well, just because you can film something - I mean, just because you have a pen doesnt make you a
Most recent headlines
09/11/2025
Dalet today announced a transformative leap forward for media operations: Agentic Artificial Intelligence (AI) that unifies the Dalet ecosystem under one natura...
23/10/2025
The new solution is industry's first multi-channel receiver available for L3Harris's resilient tactical high-frequency data waveforms....
23/10/2025
NEW YORK During a high-profile session at NAB Show New York, new survey data was shared that revealed significant public concern over artificial intelligence (A...
23/10/2025
BELLEVUE, Wash. and NEW YORK Fox Weather has tapped T-Mobile as its preferred communications provider and said all of its reporters will be equipped with SuperM...
23/10/2025
RASTATT, Germany Broadcast and media workflow technology vendor Lawo has tapped Mike Wright as VP of sales, North America....
23/10/2025
MONTREAL European cultural broadcaster ARTE has selected Grass Valley LDX 135 cameras and Creative Grading solution as part of its move from SDI/1080i to a nati...
23/10/2025
CINCINNATI The E.W. Scripps Company has named Daniel Parsons as its new chief information security officer, effective Oct. 20....
23/10/2025
ALAMEDA, Calif. Northern Michigan broadcaster WWTV recently completed a major IP-based upgrade that connects its new Traverse City studio with its control room ...
23/10/2025
A deadline is looming for a new carriage deal between Verizon's Fios TV and Nexstar, with both Verizon and the pay TV-backed American Television Alliance bl...
23/10/2025
NEW YORK During a high-profile session at NAB Show New York, new survey data was shared that revealed significant public concern over artificial intelligence (A...
23/10/2025
BELLEVUE, Wash. and NEW YORK Fox Weather has tapped T-Mobile has as its preferred communications provider and announced that all Fox Weather reporters are being...
23/10/2025
PBS will use generative AI from Amazon Web Services to provide enhanced search results to viewers on the PBS App and PBS LearningMedia platforms, the network an...
23/10/2025
Back to All News
The Resurrected' Marks First Chinese-Language Series to L...
23/10/2025
RT is today publishing a statistical summary from the Register of External Activities for the second quarter of 2025.
The RT Register of External Activities ...
23/10/2025
Series three of the award winning, hit comedy entertainment series The 2 Johnnies Late Night Lock In is back on your screens, celebrating the very best of all t...
23/10/2025
Performances by Michael Flatley, Andy Irvine, Cuckoo's Nest, Foster and Allen and more
Friday 24 October, 8pm on RT One and RT Player
Fleadh Cheoil re...
23/10/2025
The nights grow longer and the shadows get bolder with Vampire The Masquerade: B...
22/10/2025
Prime Video Inks Deal To Present NFL Black Friday Game Worldwide By SVG Staff
Wednesday, October 22, 2025 - 10:06 am
Print This Story | Subscribe
Story ...
22/10/2025
NBA Tip-Off: ESPN Goes 1080p HDR End-to-End, Flipping HDR Switch on REMI and REM...
22/10/2025
FloSports Empowers Division II, III Athletic Departments With Turnkey Production...
22/10/2025
Wall Street Video Summit Debuts, Bringing Together 200 Financial Enterprise Vide...
22/10/2025
Dueling Pianos: International Chopin Piano Competition Is as Competitive as a Ba...
22/10/2025
In 1995, a young Colombian artist released an album that would change Latin pop ...
22/10/2025
Over the past few months, a photovoltaic system has been installed on a three-he...
22/10/2025
The Orion spacecraft for NASA's Artemis II mission is stacked on the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket in High Bay 3 of the Vehicle Assembly Building at Kenn...
22/10/2025
L3Harris' Hybrid SATCOM is resilient by design, offering path diversity that eliminates vulnerabilities by routing data across the best available networks i...
22/10/2025
WASHINGTON, D.C. Organizers of NAB Show New York said they are expecting more than 12,000 registered attendees from about 100 countries along with 260 exhibitor...
22/10/2025
WASHINGTON, D.C The organizers of The 2025 NAB Show New York have announced that they are expecting more than 12,000 registered attendees from about 100 countr...
22/10/2025
Masque Sound, a leading theatrical sound reinforcement, installation and design company, supplied an extensive gear package of professional-grade equipment for ...
22/10/2025
Lightware, a global leader in signal management and AV connectivity solutions, is seeing strong market momentum for the UCX-3x3-TPX-RX20, a compact transmitter-...
22/10/2025
MELVILLE, N.Y. Chyron has released PAINT 10.2, the latest update for its telestration platform, adding support for SMPTE ST 2110 IP workflows, expanding brandin...
22/10/2025
WASHINGTON Run3TV today said NBCUniversal is joining as an investor in the ATSC 3.0 Framework Authority, which develops the Run3TV NextGen TV application platfo...
22/10/2025
ATLANTA swXtch.io will feature two new networking solutions extending the company's reach across more cloud and on-prem workflows at NAB Show New York, set ...
22/10/2025
The Warner Bros. Discoverys HBO Max streaming services has increased prices for all its streaming tiers effectively immediately for new customers. Existing cust...
22/10/2025
LOS ANGELES OpenDrives has signed a new distribution partnership deal with Versatile Distribution Services (VDS) to strengthen its channel and streamline how it...
22/10/2025
WASHINGTON, D.C The organizers of The 2025 NAB Show New York have announced that they are expecting more than 12,000 registered attendees from about 100 countr...
22/10/2025
Samora Pinderhughes Brings Immersive Sound to Berklee's Signature Series The artist and composer, who's worked with Herbie Hancock, Robert Glasper, Co...
22/10/2025
BMI Day at Berklee Celebrates Composer Fil Eisler and Awards Scholarship to Stud...
22/10/2025
October 22nd, 2025 TRIBECA ANNOUNCES STAR-STUDDED LINEUP OF MEMBERSHIP EVENTS F...
22/10/2025
Rohde & Schwarz and TRUMPF cooperate in drone defense Rohde & Schwarz and TRUMPF partner to deliver a comprehensive drone defense solution combining Rohde & S...
22/10/2025
European Broadcaster Upgrades To Grass Valley's NativeIP LDX 135 Cameras And...
22/10/2025
Everyone Gets a Better Deal on Verizon with New FOX One Perk The $15 FOX One streaming service perk is yet another way Verizon continues to add savings for cu...
22/10/2025
First Look Hidden Assets Series 3
Premieres on 9th November 9:30pm on RT One & RT Player
WATCH HERE Promo Link: Hidden Assets Series 3 | RT
The Crimin...
21/10/2025
NAB New York 2025: Although AES Show Is on Its Own, Audio Will Be a Major Part o...
21/10/2025
NAB New York 2025: Business of Broadcast and Media,' Future of Content'...
21/10/2025
SVG All-Stars: Ethan Folz, Senior Director, Digital Operations and Quality of Ex...
21/10/2025
NBA on NBC/Peacock: Livestream Offers Graphic Overlays, Predictive Gaming, Ancil...
21/10/2025
NBA on NBC/Peacock: At the Front Bench With Producer Frank DiGraci and Director ...
21/10/2025
NBA on NBC/Peacock: NBC Sports, NEP Build Ultra-Flexible Production Plan That Se...
The Square is one of the first documentaries to show the full breadth of how technological advances are aiding documentary cinema. We talked to Jehane Noujaim about how he documented Egypts revolutionary moment. 
