Stories and Stars of the Silver Screen in Egypt
By Kenzy Fahmy
Egypt’s love affair with the big screen is not something to be taken lightly. For over a hundred years, Egyptians have nurtured a deep relationship with cinema and built a film industry that at one point could rival even Hollywood. It’s a love affair that has stood the test of time, seeing the country through more than one revolution and immense social and cultural change. And Alexandria would prove to be the cradle of it all.
The very first screening took place in 1896, when a short film by the Lumiere Brothers was shown at the Toussoun Pasha Stock Exchange in Alexandria, just one year after their premier in Paris; an impressive feat at the time, let alone for a North African country. Over the next few decades, more and more screenings took place in Alexandria, as well as Cairo, with special theatres popping up all over the two cities to cater to the popular new form of entertainment.
Mohamed Bayoumi in front of his Alexandria studio Image Credit
It wasn’t until the 1920’s that Egypt started to produce its own films. Up until then the art of filmmaking was limited to foreigners who had access to the necessary equipment and training. In the early 1900’s, French cinema company Pathe, and Italian Irnapora joined the Lumiere Brothers, acquiring franchises in Egypt. But in 1923, the first local studio, Studio Amon Films, was established in Cairo’s Shubra neighbourhood by Mohamed Bayoumi, laying the foundation for the birth of Egyptian cinema. It was from this studio that some of the earliest Egyptian newsreels and films were released.
A few years later, in 1925, Bayoumi met up with economist and founder of Bank Misr, Talaat Harb, and proposed that the construction of the Egyptian bank’s new headquarters be filmed. Bayoumi also put forward the idea of institutionalizing film production and, together with Harb, created the Misr Company for Performance and Cinema. It was from these ventures that Studio Misr was born, but sadly Bayoumi received little credit in the formation of the region’s first major film studio and the pioneering filmmaker was quickly pushed out of the picture.
Studio Misr Headquarters Image Credit
With the founding of Studio Misr in 1935 came a whole new age of Egyptian cinema. Although by then there had already been a number of mostly silent locally-produced films, including “Kiss in the Desert” and “Layla”, Egypt’s first full-length feature films, both released in 1927. In the early 1930’s, sound was introduced and the industry slowly started to produce more comedies, melodramas and musicals, collaborating with popular musicians and singers like Farid Al-Attrash, Mohamed Abdel Wahab, Um Khalthoum and Sabah.
What followed in the 40s, 50s and 60s was to become the Golden Age of Egyptian cinema. Film production boomed, and by the 1950s the Egyptian film industry was the third largest in the world. It was during this time that the legendary greats of Egyptian cinema started to grace our screens, icons like Faten Hamama, Omar Sherif, Ahmed Ramzi, Ismail Yassine and Soad Hosni; the list is endless. This was when directors like Youssef Chahine began producing some of their most notable works. Egypt was releasing on average 50 movies each year and was doing so well that had it not been for the linguistic differences, it would have been difficult to tell an Egyptian movie apart from an American or European film. The movies that were produced during these three decades have become popular classics that people throughout the Arabic speaking world still enjoy until today.
Faten Hamama and Omar Sherif Image Credit
The 40s, 50s and 60s also saw significant political upheaval, from the revolution of 1952 to the Arab-Israeli conflict that spanned almost three decades. Social issues were also becoming a strong and persistent theme in the arts as a whole; the film industry was no exception. With the dissolution of the monarchy and the socialist and nationalist regimes that followed, movies were predictably seen as an important political tool, both for unity and for control.
Nasser and Sadat were actually both avid fans of film and understood the power films, and the arts in general, could hold over the beliefs and behavior of a population. And while they provided a great deal of support to the industry, they also gradually became increasingly strict when it came to censorship. The film industry was finally nationalized during the 1960s, and while many claim that this marked the beginning of the end for Egyptian cinema, some of the country’s most acclaimed films were produced during this time.
The true decline was to come later, during the late 70s and 80s. The number of movies being produced in Egypt dropped by more than half, as did the quality. But the industry is going through a revival, and during the 2000’s we started to once again see a rise in production and in popularity. A new generation of actors, writers and directors have taken over and Egypt’s film industry is once again booming. Local box office earning are also skyrocketing, often surpassing even Hollywood box offices, and the number of international film festivals like those of Gouna and Cairo are also on the uptick, reflecting the undying appreciation Egyptians have for the silver screen. Thankfully, Egypt’s love affair with film shows no signs of fading.