Foreign Features

Superman Returns survived the violent surge of Egyptian summer films and World Cup fever by falling just short of the million-pound mark, recording LE 952,000 in its first two weeks of screening. The Omen seems to be holding steady at just over LE 2 million. Inside Man — a sophisticated thriller with a twisted plot and celebrated cast that includes Denzel Washington, Jodie Foster, Clive Owen, Christopher Plummer and William Defoe — kicked off with LE 98,000 in two weeks.

Looking to build on their earlier success in Harb Italia (The Italian War), actor Ahmed El-Sakka and Lebanese sexbomb Razan take the lead roles in the upcoming Ibrahim El-Abyad.

The film, written by Abbas Abul Hassan and helmed by Omaret Yacoubian director Marwan Hamed, is scheduled to start shooting this coming September. The plot of this GN4ME suspense flick revolves around the title character Ibrahim, who is searching for his origins but doesn’t even have an official birth certificate.

The mammoth promotional campaign and lavish premiere party thrown at the Cairo Opera House for director Sherif Arafa’s much-anticipated Halim, the biopic of the late great singer Abdel Halim Hafez, has started to pay off.

Ahmed Zaki, who was set to play Abdel Halim in middle-age through his later years, was suffering from lung cancer as shooting began and fell ill just weeks into the filming. After he passed away without shooting another scene, Arafa tapped the great actor’s son, Haitham Ahmed Zaki, to take over his father’s role.

This swan song crowning the late Ahmed Zaki’s illustrious acting career reaped a sweet LE 646,000 in its first three days of screening — an unexpectedly positive development for the producers at Emadeddin Adib’s GN4ME, who will need millions to cover the expenses, including a costly Cannes Film Festival screening.

Omaret Yacoubian (The Yacoubian Building), another high-profile GN4ME production, has been the talk of the town this past month.

Ahmed zaki as Hafez

The film, based on dentist Alaa El-Aswany’s best-selling novel about the residents of a decaying Downtown Cairo building, proved that word of mouth can be an extremely effective promotional tool, after it netted an incredible LE 12.5 million during its first four weeks in theaters.

Rumor has been circulating that El-Aswany wasn’t invited to the premiere night of the filmed version of his book, and a spokesman for GN4ME said El-Aswany didn’t attend the Cairo Opera House party because of “an unintentional mistake.”

The courier company tasked with delivering the invitations, the spokesman said, simply failed to make the delivery.

Interestingly enough, it was 90 Degrees, a GN4ME company, which had been hired to handle the invites and party planning. GN4ME’s public relations office stepped in to take care of invitations for the Halim premiere.

The miserable flop of last month’s Ferqa 16 Igram (Crime Unit 16) signaled that television comedienne Abla Kamel has failed yet again to achieve substantial mainstream cinematic success.

Her follow-up, Awdet El-Nadla (Return of the Traitor), followed suit, grossing a disappointing LE 2.1 million by the end of its second week in theaters. In Awdet, she plays the loudly irritating, stereotypical character we saw her deliver about a half dozen times before — only this time the plot is an uninspired comedic take on the 1999 movie Double Jeopardy starring Ashley Judd.

Meanwhile, romantic drama El-Eshq wel-Hawa (Love and Passion) took home LE 4.1 million in two weeks, which, despite being a decent figure, suggests moviegoers are much more interested in seeing lead Ahmed El-Sakka in actioners. His big outing last summer, the action-thriller Harb Italia (The Italian War), pulled in LE 13 million.

The musical comedy El-Eyal Herbet (The Kids Escaped), starring Hamada Helal, the multi-talented Bushra and Sherif Ramzy, earned semi-success last month, pulling in a total of LE 2.2 million by the end of its third week.

The surprise hit of the season is the critically acclaimed low-budget cut Awkat Faragh (Free Time). The daring movie, which employs a first-time writer and a group of amateur actors, surpassed the LE 3.6 million mark in just five weeks.

Omar Mohsen Ahmed El-Fishawy

Dramatic serials will face an unheard-of challenge on television screens this Ramadan (slated to start sometime in late September) as sitcoms storm the nation’s TV sets.

Among the laughers most likely to make its mark is Tamer and Sawkia, produced by Sherif Arafa and directed by Ahmed Mekky. Ahmed El-Fishawy — more famous lately for his starring role in the nation’s most high-profile paternity suit than for his Ramadan 2004 series Amma Nour — and May Kassaab are set to play the title roles.

Singer Kassaab is making this her acting debut, while El-Fishawy, who rocketed to seemingly overnight fame with his character Hotta in Amma Nour, made his sitcom debut in 2001 as part of the critically panned, Friends-inspired Shabab Online (Youth Online) series.

Meanwhile, free-to-air giant MBC, which recently scooped up more than a dozen creative awards at New York advertising and marketing festivals, will produce Nazih and Nabila, which will allegedly be an Arabized version of Will and Grace.

Samy Youssef Omar Mohsen

Nazih and Nabila is set to star MBC anchorwoman Naglaa Badr.

As the religious establishment becomes more vocal in its criticism of the sexually charged music videos now so popular on satellite television, a group of conservative programmers (backed by some fairly serious cash) has launched a new website —hamasna.com — to “actively fight nudity, obscenity and corruption of the media.”

The site features a section that offers female singers and actresses alternative jobs should they decide to quit showbiz and take the veil.

Another section is dedicated to religious and/or retired artists including singer Samy Youssef, actress Shahira and the newly veiled Hala Sheeha. A separate blacklist targets big names including Haifaa Wahby, Ruby and Maria.

Karim Abdel Aziz

We can hear them quaking in their boots now

It’s no secret that the basic plots of many local productions are, um, ‘borrowed’ from hit foreign films, but you know there’s a problem when writer’s block becomes designer’s block and the phenomenon extends to include a film’s art directors.

Has anyone else noticed the striking similarity between the outdoor billboards of director Magdy El-Hawary’s El-Eyal Herbet (The Kids Escaped) and the poster for the Hollywood release Without a Paddle?

Egypt filed an application with UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee to include the Temple of Sarabit El-Khadim in its list of World Heritage Sites.

The Ministry of Culture had teamed up with French experts for the 18-year-long restoration of the temple, also known as the Turquoise Temple. The Ancient Egyptian masterpiece dedicated to the god Hat-Hor graces one of Sinai’s highest mountains, and is located in the middle of the area’s richest copper and turquoise mines.

If the application is successful, the temple will become the sixth Egyptian site to be included in the list of the world’s most important monuments.

A spokesperson for movie star Karim Abdel Aziz recently denied a rumor that claimed producer Mohammed Zein had passed Abdel-Aziz the script of El-Moqamer (The Gambler), after failing to secure a deal with actor Ahmed El-Sakka for the same role.

Courtesy Al-Akhbar Mostafa Bakri

The spokesman assured the public that the star, whose film Wahed Men El-Nass (One of the People) is currently showing, isn’t in the habit of picking up “second-hand scenarios.”

Lebanese singer Dominique recently launched her debut album with a press conference held, in all places, at a Mohandiseen coffee shop.

The album includes Dominique’s current video hit, the song Atrees, which features her clad in Egyptian peasant clothing that is, according to her, a tribute to the character Shadya played in the screen classic She’e Men El-Khoaf (A Trace of Fear).

Interestingly enough, though, the album didn’t include her previous song El-Wawa, which was banned by the local music censor’s office even though it is still being aired all over satellite TV.

Fouad El-Mohandes

The song has also sparked a full-fledged war between Dominique and Haifaa Wahby, who recently released a song with the same title and very similar lyrics.

Meanwhile, the British reality TV program Just Fabulous chose Dominique to appear in one of its new episodes. Audiences worldwide know Dominique as the model who appeared in the video of Sting’s A Brand New Day in 1999.

Critics and cinemagoers voiced dismay last month as the People’s Assembly’s Culture, Media and Tourism Committee appointed itself the nation’s top film and literature reviewing and censorship authority.

The outcry came after Mostafa Bakri, an MP and editor-in-chief of El-Osbou’ newspaper, demanded that the committee look into the film version of Omaret Yacoubian (The Yacoubian Building) and consider censoring some of its scenes. Bakri objected to scenes that included the homosexual character Hatem Rashid (brilliantly played by Khaled El-Sawi, who has since become the talk of the capital).

Abdel Moniem Madbouli

Bakri described the scenes as being unnecessary and said they were reason enough for youth, including his own children, not to watch the film.

Yacoubian scriptwriter Wahid Hamed countered that should the film be cut, the filmmakers and producers would burn all copies, conduct a funeral for it, and bury the ashes in front of the Cinema Syndicate to mark the death of Egyptian cinema.

After a stormy People’s Assembly session, the film was granted permission to continue without censorship.

T he first National Egyptian Theater Festival was recently held in Cairo, adding yet another art festival to Egypt’s long list of annual cultural events.

The festival was dedicated in honor of Hamdi Gheith, Abdel Moneim Madbouli, Fouad El-Mohandes and Hussein El-Sherbini.

Festival Director Ashraf Zaki voiced his surprise at the success of the festival, and the large number of Egyptian theater stars who turned up to participate. A number of national, private, independent and university groups put on a total of 33 productions as part of the main competition, which ran July 10-19.

Egypt lost three cultural icons last month, hitting hard the fields of theater, literature, and fine arts. The three late artists were among the most influential, widely respected and popular in their respective disciplines.

Comedian Abdel Moneim Madbouli passed away one day before the opening of the first National Egyptian Theater Festival, the same festival at which he was to be honored by Minister of Culture Farouk Hosni for his lifetime contribution to Egyptian theater.

Madbouli, who died at the age of 79 after a brief illness, was a key figure in Egyptian comedy — so much so that he spawned a school of humor known as ‘Madboulism’ that influenced some of the greatest names in the business. Among his followers were Adel Imam and Saeed Saleh.

Also deceased is writer, critic and former National Book Organization Chairman Samir Sarhan. Sarhan’s name was synonymous with the annual Cairo International Book Fair and was the driving force behind the highly successful Family Library project. The Family Library published some of the most important books in Egyptian and Arab literature at affordable prices — between LE 1 and LE 3 — making it possible for the poorest Egyptians to own the most brilliant literary gems.

Only one year into his retirement, Sarhan died of cancer on the first of last month.

Finally, Ahmed El-Rashidi’s death last month shocked fine arts connoisseurs throughout Egypt. El-Rashidi was one of Egypt’s most established ‘free artists’ — a term used to describe artists who had not graduated from one of Egypt’s art faculties.

El-Rashidi was once a resident artist of Wekalet El-Ghouri, which previously housed several studios belonging to some of the nation’s greatest artists. The Wekala has ceased to play this important role for years, as it continues to undergo a series of renovations.

The distinct style with which El-Rashidi painted his beautiful, almond-eyed women will live forever in collections around the country.

The visual arts censorship office has banned a controversial play entitled Bilad fil Mazad (A Country on Auction), which relates the story of an ‘unidentified’ country that is sold by its government for foreign cash.

Head Censor Ali Abu Shadi said the play was banned because it broke Egyptian law by accusing the government of selling out to foreign buyers. Abu Shadi pointed out that the writer has every right to appeal to the complaints’ committee at the Ministry of Culture.

Mohsen El-Gallad, the playwright, refused to take it lying down, proclaiming that the censor has no right to appoint itself a judge on artistic creativity. According to El-Gallad, a writer has the freedom to use his imagination as he sees fit.

The events of the play take place in the year 2025 in an undefined country in the South Pole.  et