R/I ~ AA
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Typically when western audiences (particularly Americans) think of Egyptian art their minds jump straight to the Pyramids, the Sphinx, Rami Malek….and that’s about it. When asked about the arts of Modern Egypt you’ll typically get a blank in response. This is unfortunate because there was a time when Egypt was the home of a thriving and personable filming industry. From the 1920s all the way until the 70s Egypt was a hotbed for film. What happened? To answer that we need to go to the very beginning.
Egyptians were enjoying film almost before film existed. In 1896 short films made by the Lumière brothers were shown in Alexandria. Although initially popular among a niche community the films shown by the brothers led to a flowering of interest among Egyptian artisans and patrons. By 1908 the country had eleven theaters and was predominately filled with foreign short films at first.
The silent films made by the Lumières were among the most popular but a small number of silent films from other creators were popular as well. By 1917 the number of theaters in Egypt, namely in Cairo and Alexandria, swamped from a mere eleven to more than eighty in number. The sheer number of theaters meant that Lumière brothers no longer held a monopoly on the market. Soon Italian and French entrepreneurs came to Egypt in droves to try their hand at Egyptian filmmaking.
At first Egypt took to the newcoming Italians and Frenchmen nicely. It was a breath of fresh air and audiences enjoyed the western artform. But eventually there was a call to get in more localized entertainment. So desperate were Egyptians for local films that they began to flock more towards newsreels more than actual films. It didn’t help that from 1917 until the mid 1920s most of the Italian made films were made using shoddy equipment with horrendous quality.
In 1926 that all changed with the introduction of the Lama brothers. The Lamas were of Lebanese-South American descent and seemed to understand what Middle Eastern viewers at the time wanted to see in film far more than their Italian and French counterparts did. They took with them all of their filming and sound equipment and, inspired by the American cowboy and western films, took to filming Bedouin peoples in very romantic ways. Bedouins were depicted in the two brother’s films almost as though they were Arab cowboys. This drastic change of style in genre was beloved by Egyptian audiences.
Laila(Leila), filmed in 1927, is considered by many to be the first true Egyptian film since it was the first to have actually been written by an Egyptian. While the Lama brothers had success and definitely took in local Egyptian tastes into account the film Laila helped to cement a true native Egyptian flavor of filmmaking.
The silent era of Egyptian filmmaking had been dominated by cowboy-style Bedouin films but that all changed with the invention of talkies. Al Wardah al-Baida, filmed in 1933, was the first Egyptian talking film and it set a precedent for most Egyptian movies of that era to come, it was a musical. Until the end of the 1940s musicals dominated Egyptian theaters.
The removal of King Farouk in the 50s saw the end of Egypt’s musical era and under Nasser the beginning of national censorship of films but this did not damage local Egyptian filmmaking the way you think it would have. While government censorship did prohibit Egyptian films from offending the religious and the governmental elite it did not prohibit the sexual (not entirely).
Films could still portray kissing and romance and violence and so films did. The 1958 film Cairo Station depicted a deranged homeless murderer who attacked women. The film itself did not blatantly depict sex scenes due to nationalistic and religious censorship but it hinted at sex enough using train innuendos that general audiences understood what was happening. Such creative loopholes enabled films of the era to be as romantic or graphic as they wanted so long as they weren’t brazen about it.
The 1950s and early 60s are considered the Golden Age of Egyptian film but unfortunately it all came to and end near the beginning of the 70s. Nationalistic control of Egypt’s film market might have brought about censorship but it also kept the industry alive. Once the 70s came about and films were denationalized the industry fell apart due to corruption, crappy management, and a lack of interest in local films altogether.
It didn’t help that for whatever reason Egypt began to become more religious as time went on. While religious and political censorship had always been a thing now Egyptian artforms were having trouble appealing to anyone who did not want their religious principles questioned. In the 90s the Egyptian filming world shattered into separate venues for niche communities. A hipstery community formed creating local Egyptian films that westerners enjoyed but few locals approved of while local films that were enjoyed by natives of the country were mostly propagandized affair.
When the Arab Spring went into full effect in 2011 Egypt’s government and people went into a tizzy. Bassem Youssef, a comedic talk-show host akin to the likes of Jon Stewart or Trevor Noah, was kicked out of Egypt in 2014 due to his jokes offending the government. He now lives in America and shows no sign of ever returning to his home country. This governmental erasure of its country’s free market filmmaking and writing shows no signs of stopping anytime soon which is a shame considering where Egypt’s filmming legacy started.
Egypt today is not as creative as it used to be. While the occasional filmmaker still does make something brave and bold in Egypt such films are not as popular there as they would have been fifty years ago. It is mostly niche western audiences who are interested in innovative Egyptian film. In dire times like these for artists, it is important to remember that once upon a time Egypt really was a powerhouse of filmmaking.
Some References:
https://guides.library.cornell.edu/MidEastCinema/Egypt
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinema_of_Egypt
https://theculturetrip.com/africa/egypt/articles/10-things-you-didn-t-know-about-egyptian-cinema/
https://www.jstor.org/stable/3334315
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0051390/
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0258759/
Some Questions:
- Do you think the religious sensitivities of Egypt’s more traditionalistic government holds back it’s nation’s artisanal potential?
- Would Egyptian filmmakers benefit from a more secularized government?
- Are there any other countries you can think of whose films or other works of art are held back by its biased populace, religious or otherwise?
Dollarmenu Jesus