Free Trip To Egypt is a 2019 feature length documentary film following one man’s search for random Americans concerned about an Islamic threat and offering them a free trip to Egypt.
It’s a divisive time, though some might say it’s always been and always will be, it’s just these days with a controversial mouthpiece and an expanded social media reach there is wider voice and and as such, wider breach to opposing views. For now, let’s not sit on either side of this battle – fought properly elsewhere – but instead think about something that often gets pushed aside in place of rhetoric and grandstanding: conversation.
Tarek Mounib, an Egyptian Muslim entrepreneur, has an idea while riding on a tram in Switzerland. He thinks about bringing people together to share ideas and learn from each other. Now that alone isn’t all that new, but Tarek’s idea is unique. He wants to bring Americans, especially those fearful of Muslims and Middle Eastern countries, to his home country to see that things are not always how they are painted on TV for a political agenda.
He goes right into the heart of the lion’s den to do this, attending Trump Rallies – wearing a red MAGA cap – to try and recruit Americans to join him for an all-expenses trip to Egypt for a cultural exchange, hoping to enlighten both sides of people misinformed about the larger truth. You can imagine the result. His Facebook page is littered with hate and insults, people walk away from him in disgust, while some explain how the whole area ‘over there’ should be done in after we get the oil that belongs to us.
Eventually though, as he refuses to give up, he gets a small group of mostly deeply conservative, mostly deeply Christian (and Jewish), people to join him to travel through and experience Egypt. The film tracks their recruitment, helping to shape who they are and how their environment has formed their beliefs. It then puts them on a plane where they first have some typical vacation fun, but soon meet their Egyptian counterparts who will escort them through their time in a foreign country.
It’s here where the film truly takes hold, pairing each of them with what seems initially like polar opposites, but, as you well know (or should), when the facade and anonymity of a group is stripped away, leaving individuals to face each other without an agenda, we become not people of different countries, but people of our planet.
This is the most significant achievement of director Ingrid Serban‘s film and Mounib’s efforts, a film that on the most intimate levels, makes connections incredibly personal, to the point where you wish this was the way the world over would work. It does this because Serban and Mounib cleverly force you to confront your own expectations about all these people from the start, no matter which side of the fence you stand on, then slowly dismantle them piece by piece, allowing cultures, religions, beliefs and more to meld into a truly moving experience.
Naturally, Mounib has grander visions for humanity, like so many around the globe, hoping those in power who use borders and beliefs as weapons rather than opportunities would just share instead of horde, to think of community more than individual. Of course, a promised trip like this almost comes packed with change, and no doubt, a paid excursion, filmed as such make the participates seem like – as one of them even notes – contestants in a game show (or a reality show), with the movie actually putting them all in a room every day to discuss their experiences. None get voted off thankfully.
However, the good thing is, it’s small but significant steps like this, forcing those who participated in the program to face their convictions and realize that no matter where you are, people are different and have worthy opinions, and that not everyone in one country thinks alike. That’s the lesson, that differences exists and tolerance matters. Despite its flaws, the very act of getting that conversation started makes Free Trip To Egypt worthy. Highly recommended.