THE PASSAGE FROM the 1970s to the 1980s was arguably the most turbulent era in Egyptian cinema. The shift from the socialist economic policies of Nasser to Sadat’s Open-Door policy did take its toll on the industry, but the downturn had started earlier with the 1967 and 1973 wars, when film production declined both in quality and quantity. Then came the bikinis.

The 1970s was the age of low-budget Lebanese flicks flaunting skimpily-clad Egyptian actresses. The requisite beach scenes were excuses for badly written, flimsy plots, but these films kept food on the table for many in the industry.

Our local aflam el-mekawlat (contactor’s films) ruled the 1980s, a decade marked by the birth of the video tape empire. Again low-budget films shot in a maximum of six weeks were a chance for film ‘contractors’ (as opposed to filmmakers and producers) to make a quick buck through easy distribution and video rentals. No more fretting about box office revenues and artistic quality. This phase saw the rise of comedians like Samir Ghanem, Saeed Saleh and Younes Shalaby who offered films like El-Ragol Ellazy Atass (The Man Who Sneezed, 1985), El-Efl (The Lock, 1983), and Hassan Bey El-Ghalban (Poor Hassan Bey, 1982). The plots were even flimsier than the titles. Ahmed El-Sobky was the biggest contractor in the business, with a unique knack for pirating foreign films which he distributed widely without authorization.

But it wasn’t all bad. The 1980s also produced a few timeless classics criticizing the totalitarianism of the Nasser era. Strong dramas about the issues that plagued an Egypt in transition were a cry for help to the authorities and dealt with problems like the housing crunch and drug cartels. With the relative increase in freedom of expression experienced under President Mubarak, hard-hitting films about the corruption of businessmen and government officials could come out every once in a while.

In the 1990s the number of films produced remained low, but some did try to make a difference. Actor Hussein Fahmy attempted to use the Cairo International Film Festival, which he headed from 1998 to 2002, to improve the image of Egyptian cinema. Apart from inviting international celebrities like Alain Delon, John Malkovich and Danny Glover to the annual event, he tried to bring in new technology by introducing a trade fair on the fringe of the festival where manufacturers could exhibit their new and improved cinema gadgets. But like most people whose find their calls for change frustrated, he eventually resigned and was replaced by Deputy Culture Minister Cherif El Shoubashy.

A major turning point came in 1998. A new law encouraging investments by businessmen in the film industry led to the birth of new conglomerates like Founoun and El Adl group. Yet despite the control they excercised over production and distribution of films, which many believed would hinder young independent producers who want to create more artsy films, Fonoun was behind two films which stand out from the swarm of brainless comedies riddling our cinemas today: Sahar El-Layali (Sleepless Nights, 2003), an ensemble drama about the lives of four young couples; and Bahib El-Cima (I Love Cinema, 2004), the controversial film depicting a Coptic family in the 1960s.

Egypt Today Archives Adel Imam

We may be entering a new era. The following is a quick look back at some events highlighting the past 25 years.

Our Very Own Elvis

In 1981 gorgeous guitarist Omar Khorshid delivered his best cinema performance opposite Madiha Kamel in El-Arrafa (The Fortuneteller). He played a police officer who sympathizes with a student arrested for her political opinions. Two months after the critical acclaim and box-office success of the film, Khorshid died in a car accident. It was rumored that he was having an affair with a married woman whose powerful husband violently settled the score.

Egypt Today Archives Shams El Baroudi

Career Change

After playing supporting roles in the late 1960s and early 1970s, belly dancer Zizi Mostapha decided to embark on a new career as a film producer. Her first effort, Banat Iblees (Satan’s Daughters, 1984) was directed by Aly Abdel Khalek and starred Madiha Kamel. She named her production company Menatallah after her daughter. In an interview she gave to Hawaa Magazine at the time, Zizi spoke of how she had Menna’s future all mapped out: She would send her to an English school and groom her for a future in the diplomatic corps. Seems she didn’t quite make it to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, though. Zizi’s daughter is the very same Menna Shalaby, notorious for showing skin, most recently in a shower scene in the controversial Bahib El-Cima.

Perfect Timing

Al-Qadessia was an exceptional historical epic not only in terms of plot but also because it was a rare co-production between Egypt and Iraq. Directed by Salah Abou Seif, the film traced the heroic battle led by Muslim leader Saad Ibn Abby Waqass against the Persians. The timing couldn’t have been more perfect. The movie came out in 1980, the eve of the Iraq-Iran war.

Egypt Today Archives Ahmed Zaki

No Place Like Home

With their eyes fixed on Omar Sharif’s international success, many actors co-starred in foreign films hoping to become the next Dr. Zhivago. Adel Adham, who mastered the role of the dirty old man in movies like El-Ontha Wa El-Zi’aab (The Female and the Wolves, 1975) and Hafia Ala Gessr Min El-Zahab (Barefoot on a Bridge of Gold, 1977), hopped on the bandwagon in 1983, appearing with Italian comedian Bud Spencer in Flat Foot. The film was partially shot in Egypt. Adham appeared (briefly) in two scenes and (thankfully) he never repeated the experience. Director Ashraf Fahmy later cast Adham in a dark psychodrama titled El-Maghoul (The Unknown, 1984), based on a play by French novelist Albert Camus. He gave a riveting performance as the deaf-mute hotel gardener used as an instrument of death by his employer, played by Sanaa Gamil, who gave an equally superb performance.

Big Break

Comedian Adel Imam made cinema history with Ragab Fouk Safeeh Sakhen (Ragab on a Hot Tin Roof, 1979). The film broke all previous box-office records and spent 37 weeks in theaters. Throughout the past two decades, he has been the uncontested king of the box office, churning out roles in every conceivable genre. Now in his fifties, Imam is still going strong.

Transformation

Mervat Amin was discovered by actor Ahmed Mazhar who introduced her in one his few directorial efforts Nofouss Ha’era (Confused Souls, 1968). Her subsequent roles were in titillating flicks such as the Lebanese production Aazam Tefl Fel Alam (Greatest Child on Earth, 1972), Anf Wi Thalathat Oyoun (A Nose and Three Eyes, 1974) and Thalathat Fatayat Morahekat (Three Teenage Girls, 1976). In the early 1980s, after 12 years in showbiz, Amin decided to change her screen image, taking on more mature roles. These later films like Atef El-Tayeb’s Sawwak El-Autobus (Bus Driver, 1983) and Mohammed Khan’s Zawget Ragol Mohem (A VIP’s Wife, 1988) became landmarks in the Egyptian cinema of the 1980s.

Mohamed Bakr/Egypt Today Roushdy Abaza and Hind Rostom

Cut and Paste

Following prolonged illness, Roushdy Abaza (voted the best-looking individual ever to grace the silver screen, at least by Egypt Today staff) returned from Europe after several painful operations. His health declined and he passed away in 1982 at age 53 while shooting his last movie El-Aqweyaa (The Mighty Ones) with Naglaa Fathy and Mahmoud Yassin. To finish the film, director Ashraf Fahmy decided to use a body double and, of all people, the unfortunate choice fell on Salah Nazmy, who has absolutely nothing in common with the Egyptian male sex symbol of the century. The movie didn’t quite make it.

Milestones

Despite the dire state of Egyptian cinema in the 1980s, two films penned by screenwriter Mahmoud Abou Zeid stand out: El-Aar (Shame, 1982) and El-Keif (Addiction, 1985). These tales about Egypt’s underground drug empires were milestones in the careers of Nour El-Sherif, Hussein Fahmy and Mahmoud Abdel Aziz, whose performances earned them rave reviews and many awards.

Egypt Today Archives Director Inas El Degheidy

Entabehu Ayoha El Sada (Beware Gentlemen, 1980), was another important movie commenting on the post-infitah changes in Egyptian society. The film co-starred Fahmi and Mahmoud Yassin, who played the role of his life as a garbage-collector-cum-millionaire.

Director Atef El-Tayeb’s acclaimed El-Hob Fawq Hadabet El-Haram (Love on the Pyramids Plateau, 1986) was a neo-realistic social drama about a newlywed’s futile search for an apartment. It is also considered to be one of the most significant movies of this decade

Inas is Born

After a 10-year-assistantship with big names like directors Barakat and Salah Abou Seif, Inas El-Degheidy, who would become notorious for tackling risqué social issues, made her impressive directorial debut in Afwan Ayoha Al-Qanoun (Excuse Me Mr. Law, 1985), which was based on a screenplay by Ibrahim El-Mogy. In it Mahmoud Abdel Aziz plays a newly married man with serious sexual inhibitions. When his wife, played by Naglaa Fathy, helps him get over his problems he repays her by becoming a womanizer. El-Degheidy later went on to make other films explicitly exploring female sexuality like Dantella (1998) and Mozakarat Morahqa (An Adolescent’s Memoirs, 2002).

Egypt Today Archives Youssef Mansour (right) with Sylvester Stallone

Mansour Lee

Upon returning from the US with a huge Van Damme syndrome, Youssef Mansour was the first Egyptian actor to play leading roles in martial-arts films like Kabdat El-Helaly (El-Helaly’s Fist, 1991). He later married Nelly, who co-starred in Qet El-Saharaa (Desert Cat, 1995), which he also directed. He is best known for Badr (2002) a (pathetic) adaptation of The Bodyguard, and for his aborted attempt to produce a TV series called Triple I co-starring Sylvester Stallone. The project never saw the light and Mansour vanished into thin air.

Too Hot to Handle

In 1983, both Darb El-Hawa starring Youssra and Madiha Kamel and Khamsa Bab starring Nadia El-Guindy and Adel Imam lasted in theaters for only two weeks before they were pulled by the censors. The reason? Both films were about the lives of the belly dancers of the infamous Kolob Bey Street in 1960s, a subject which a conservative media found scandalous. They were finally made available to the public in 1992.

Another film targeted by the lawyers syndicate was El-Avocato (The Lawyer, 1984) which combined comedy with scathing social criticism and gave lawyers a bad name. Starring Adel Imam and two of his favorite co-stars, Isaad Younes and Youssra, and written and directed by Raafat El-Meihy, the movie tells the story of an ambulance-chasing lawyer who tries to infiltrate a drug cartel.

Theaters Galore

Aiming to give the movie industry a much-needed shot in the arm, the government issued a law in 1998 allowing businessmen to invest in the film industry with a minimum capital of LE 200 million. It was a turning point. Naguib Sawiris established Renaissance Cinemas and Amr Osman built the Osman Group Cinemas, the first chain of state-of-the-art multiplexes in Egypt. But because neither of them was interested in the quality of films show in their theaters and chose only those films that would be commercially successful, directors like Youssef Chahine led an opposition campaign against this law, which he considered discriminatory against serious filmmakers. Chahine later invested in Downtown’s Odeon cinema and built his own Galaxy Cinema multiplex in Manial through his production company Misr El-Alameya.

The Comeback

Written and directed by Hany Lasheen in 1984, Ayoub was the first television movie to be released in cinemas. It marked the return of Omar Sharif to the Egyptian film scene following a 22 year absence during which time he starred in immortal classics like Lawrence of Arabia (1962) and Funny Girl (1968). In Ayub, Sharif played a wealthy businessman whose sudden illness leads to some serious soul searching concerning the sources of his great fortune.

Change of Heart

Days before the release of her last movie Etnein Ala El-Tareek (Two on the Road, 1984), film star Shams El-Baroudy suddenly took the veil and announced her retirement. It came as a shock to the cinema community. Throughout the 1970s Shams was the hottest commodity in both Egyptian and Lebanese productions, playing the seductress in controversial films like Hammam El-Malateely (Malateely Bath, 1972), Imraa Sayeat El-Somaa (A Woman With A Bad Reputation, 1973) and Rehlet El-Omr (A Lifetime Journey, 1975). Etnein Ala El-Tareek was a road movie about a wife who flees from her wealthy husband (Adel Adham) only to hook up with the poor but humorous Adel Imam. It was one of the few films directed by her second husband Hassan Youssef, who also gave up acting for years before his 2003 appearance on a television series chronicling the life of late sheikh Mohammed Metwally El-Shaarawy.

Endless Bureaucracy

In 1982 a proposal to build film studios by El-Sheikh Saleh Kamel, the Saudi media guru who owns ART, was turned down by the national Misr Company for Theatres and Distribution. Despite the decline in the state of our cinemas, Saad El-Din Wahba, who headed the cinema syndicate at the time, insisted that Egypt’s cinema industry should be revitalized by Egyptian money alone. His so-called nationalism and endemic bureaucracy paralyzed the production and distribution of films for more than a decade later.

A New Phase

In 1986 Sherif Arafa, son of director Saad Arafa, made his first movie El-Akzam Kademoon (The Dwarves are Coming) which went relatively unnoticed. His real start came with his collaboration with Adel Imam in El-Erhab Wel Kabab (Terrorism and Kebab, 1992). Criticizing bureaucracy and exposing the hypocrisy of high-ranking government officials, it was an instant hit. Other successes teaming Adel and Arafa include El-Le’eb Ma’a El-Kobar (Playing With the Big Boys, 1991) and El-Manssy (1993).

No Nonsense

In the early 1990s, one of the few strong films tackling serious themes was Katibat El-E’edam (Death Squad, 1989), penned by the king of soap operas Osama Anwar Okasha in one of his rare contributions to cinema. Starring Nour El-Sherif, it told the story of as an innocent man who was framed and sent to jail for 20 years.

Stage to Cinema

With the drop in the number of films produced from 20 in the 1980s to only 10 or fewer in the 1990s, a new trend emerged of filming plays and screening them in cinemas. It began with Adel Imam’s El-Wad Sayed El-Shaghal (Sayed the Handyman, 1992), followed by a belly-dancing Fifi Abdu special Hazemny Ya Baba (Dance With Me Daddy, 1997). The last play to get the same treatment was Keddah OK starring Ahmed El-Sakka. It was a box office disaster.

Public Icons

Egyptian ex-president Gamal Abdel Nasser’s life was portrayed in two consecutive films. The uncritical and glorifying Nasser 56 (1996) was directed by Mohammed Fadel, with the charismatic Ahmed Zaki playing the lead role. (Four years later, Zaki played Sadat, a much stronger film directed by Mohamed Khan. Zaki’s plans to play legendary singer Abdel Halim Hafez were thwarted when he fell terminally ill a few months ago.) The second was the highly controversial Gamal Abdel El-Nasser (1998), directed by Syrian Anwar El-Qawadry and starring Khaled El-Sawy. Objections from Nasser’s relatives led to the movie being lifted from theaters three weeks after its release.

The Boom and the Bust

In 2002, Jordanian businessman Alaa El-Khawaga and his wife, Egyptian actress Issaad Younes, started the Arab Company for Arts and Publishing (Fonoun), the first multi-national conglomerate in the entertainment business. Founoon started by buying leading Egyptian and Lebanese record companies like Sawt Libnan and Sawt El Fan, thus controlling the rights to both legendary singers Abdel-Halim Hafez and Farid El-Atrash. It also bought the negatives of more than 150 classic Egyptian films and the Renaissance and Osman Group multiplexes.

Their luck took a turn for the worse when two films they produced Mowaten Wi Mokhber Wi Haramy (A Citizen, a Detective and a Thief, 2001) and El-Saher (The Magician, 2002) failed miserably in the box office. The huge sums of money they spent buying films and cinemas put them in financial dire straits and in 2004 they were forced to sell out to Rotana, a media heavyweight owned by Saudi tycoon Al-Walid Ibn Talal. The move stirred the anger of film critics who launched a press campaign against selling our cultural heritage to foreigners. A law to protect Egypt’s cinematic treasures is currently in the pipeline.  et