BFI

Following the fourteen-part Tour of Spain and Portugal that he shot for R.W. Paul in 1896, the following year Henry Short went to Egypt to capture similarly exotic material for a follow-up series. He is known to have made ten films there, of which this and Fishermen and Boat at Port Said (1897) are the only ones known to survive.

Women Fetching Water from the Nile is notable for the elegance and simplicity of its composition, with the camera placed to exaggerate the perspective of the wall that the women are walking alongside. Although there is no narrative content as such, the way the women approach and retreat from the camera creates a more compelling image than if he had just filmed them head-on (as in the previous year's Breakers, for instance), especially given the curiosity value of the large pots that they carry on their heads.

Michael Brooke

*This film is included in the BFI DVD compilation 'R.W. Paul: The Collected Films 1895-1908', with music by Stephen Horne and optional commentary by Ian Christie.

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