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“The sweeping victory of Islamists in the first two rounds of Egypt’s first parliamentary elections after the ouster of former president Hosni Mubarak’s regime raised liberals’ concerns over a variety of issues, on top of which was the future of the film industry under a conservative government. The debate between a prominent Muslim Brotherhood leader and a prominent liberal director served to give an insight into the aspects of the problem. Head of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Film and Drama Committee Mohamed al-Naggar started with objections to the labels liberals sometimes give to types of films to distinguish between what is conservative and what is not. “There is nothing called a Brotherhood film or a leftist film or a Nasserist film,” Naggar told Al Arabiya’s Parliament Race. Naggar explained that unlike what many people think the Muslim Brotherhood are not against cinema and do not believe that it is against Islam. “On the contrary, cinema like any art is an integral part of human nature.” What the Brotherhood cares about the most, he pointed out, is the production of movies that represent the values of society. “We cannot reduce a movie into a couple of sex scenes because this does not reflect the reality of women in Egypt.”………”

Egyptian Cinema had its golden age during the 1940s, the 1950s, and the 1960s. It started to decline with the beginning of the 1970s. There have been a few good films in the past four decades, but most of the films have been lousy and I have avoided them. The golden age of Egyptian cinema was also the period of social freedom. With the advent of the Sadat and Mubarak regimes, Egyptian society began its descent into quasi-Wahhabi restrictions and decline. This was also reflected in the arts and in culture in general, from novels to plays. There have been some good Egyptian writers since, but nobody like Mahfouz, Toufiq al-Hakeem, Taha Hussein, among many others.
Egyptian cinema was not too far behind international films in those days. Great actors like Yosuf Wahbi, Fareed Shawqi, al-Mileegi, Hussein Riyadh, Omar Shareef, and many many others. Great comedians like Naguib el-Reehani, Adel Khairi, Ismail Yasseen, Mary Muneib, and others. Not to forget great actresses like Fatin Hamama, Fatma Rushdy, Hind Rustum, among others.
Look for the Egyptian cinema to decline further under the new regime, especially as it seems almost certain now that the Salafis will be part of it. Yet Islamic rule does not have to mean decline of the cinema: there is one example of the opposite happening. I think I will do my next posting on that.
Then the Salafis may want to bring Egyptian cinema to the level of Saudi cinema, meaning non-existent since there is no cinema industry or cinema theaters in Saudi Arabia (alles verboten).
Cheers
mhg


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