International filmmakers have always been intrigued by the air of mystique that envelops the lives of ancient Egypt’s pharaohs. While screenwriters and directors of the last century were captivated by Cleopatra (think: Elizabeth Taylor in 1963’s film by the same name with Richard Burton), the 18th Dynasty Queen Nefertiti seems poised to finally emerge into the spotlight.

Nefertiti, said by some historians to have been one of the most powerful and stunningly beautiful women of the ancient world, will take her turn on the silver screen in two films set to begin shooting next year, both of them digging deep into the story behind the ancient queen to retell the legend of the immortal icon, frozen in time.

The first set to start filming, according to the French edition of Premiere magazine, will reunite German-born director Marc Forster, who directed the recently released and instantly successful Finding Neverland (2004), with American stunner Halle Berry. The two previously worked together on the critically acclaimed film noir Monster’s Ball (2002), for which Berry won the Oscar for best performance by an actress in a leading role.

Berry is set to portray Nefertiti in the lavish production, although the rest of the casting remains a mystery.

The second film is likely to prove more interesting on the local scene, involving as it does both British-born producer John Heyman and Egyptian writer Ahmed Osman. Heyman whose son David is co-producer of the Harry Potter film series adapted from JK Rowling’s best-selling novels has been in the industry for years. But his filmography as a producer tends to be less than impressive in terms of quality. To date, he is credited with just 13 films in a career that spans more than 30 years, including a filmed version of Richard Burton’s 1964 performance of Hamlet on Broadway and an early thriller entitled Twinky (1969) that starred Charles Bronson and was filmed by action director Richard Donner (who helmed the Lethal Weapon series).

In 1979, Heyman co-produced the most distinct and infamous production of his career to date: Jesus. The film was shot on location in Israel and subsequently screened worldwide; it has since been translated into a staggering 896 languages (the target: 1,154), making it the most translated film in the history of cinema. Two more films worth mentioning in Heyman’s filmography include Sir David Lean’s last film, A Passage To India (1984), and the family adventure entitled D.A.R.Y.L. (1985), which starred a cast of relatively unknown actors.

From that date on, Heyman eased himself out of the limelight only to reappear last month at Egyptian Media Production City (EMPC), where he was seen scouting locations for his new film about Nefertiti. According to EMPC, Michael Austin will be penning the script to be directed by Hugh Hudson. The duo previously collaborated in a filmed version of Edgar Rice Burroughs’s novel Tarzan of the Apes in 1984 entitled Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes. Hudson is perhaps best known as the director of 1981’s Chariots of Fire.

Last November both Hudson and Austin reportedly visited Media City as well, and Ahmed Nasser, the former Egyptian Radio and Television Union (ERTU) sports anchorman, is said to be set to co-produce through his company Super Global Network.

The controversy lies in the book on which the film will be based: Moses and Akhenaten: The Secret History of Egypt at the Time of the Exodus, published in 2002 and written by Ahmed Osman, who has been carrying out his own research and hence developing his own unorthodox theories that set out to rewrite history and perhaps even religion.

Osman, born in Cairo in 1934, began his career as a journalist in the early 1960s after earning a law degree from Cairo University. He moved to London in 1964 to study pharaonic history in an attempt to find a connection between the stories of the Bible and historical evidence uncovered by archaeologists during the past 100 years.

His first theories were nothing short of shocking to many. The local weekly magazine October ran a lengthy series on Osman having identified the prophet Joseph as Yuya, the minister and father-in-law to Amenhotep III, a pharaoh from the 18th Dynasty.

This identification became the subject of his first book, Stranger In The Valley Of The Kings (1987). His second (Moses: Pharaoh of Egypt, 1990) was largely an attempt to fix the date of the Israelite Exodus from Egypt, while in his third book, The House of the Messiah (1992), he sought to establish the identity of King David, the great ancestor of Jesus Christ. Osman also identified the Prophet Moses as King Akhenaten (husband of Queen Nefertiti) and Akhenaten’s son King Tutankhamun as none other than Jesus.

Last year, Osman presented a copy of his book Out of Egypt: Unearthing the True Roots of Christianity (1998) to His Holiness Pope Shenouda III, the 117th Pope of Alexandria and Patriarch of the See of St. Mark.

These interesting associations, of course, later led to Heyman pitching the tagline of his movie as: “A love affair between Nefertiti and Moses.”

“One can find in the Old Testament that Moses and Nefertiti had a relationship,” he adds.

“My argument is controversial and not widespread among many Egyptologists,” Osman says, “but I have collected evidence proving that Akhenaten and Moses are the same person, which so far nobody has been able to contest.”

“Egypt’s history is greatly ignored by the film industry besides Cleopatra and The Ten Commandments and that’s it,” says Heyman, referring to the two epic Hollywood blockbusters released over 40 years ago. “The shoot will not start before 2006 and locations will be divided [between] studios and along the Nile in Upper Egypt.” The director plans to build an entire city like Akhenaten’s capital in Tel El-Amarna. Furthermore, the “Pharaonic Region” of the Egyptian Media City will be included in the film’s sets.

Although he claims it is too early to talk about the cast, Heyman says he and Osman have met “several Egyptian actors who are very good and charming, warm and kind.” They include Dalia El-Beheiry, Hany Salama, Nehal Anbar and Khaled El-Nabawy, who recently appeared in a few scenes of Ridley Scott’s latest epic Kingdom of Heaven.

Heyman says the film’s final budget should come in at around US$100 million, with 40 percent of that figure allocated to shooting in Egypt. After three decades in which prohibitive customs duties on imported film equipment forced major Middle East productions including Gladiator, Sahara, Spy Game, Black Hawk Down and The Mummy to Morocco and Tunisia, Egypt has at last become affordable, Heyman says. How so? Look no further than Minister of Culture Farouk Hosny, who recently brokered a deal with the Ministry of Finance to abolish duties on gear imported by international film companies shooting on location in Egypt.

It is still uncertain whether there will be some reluctance on the part of Egyptian stars to participate in a production involving more than its fair share of controversy, given the fact that it is anticipated that the movie will be shown on a worldwide scale.  et