The Egyptian film industry is today based mainly in Cairo, which is sometimes referred to as Hollywood on the Nile, Hollywood of the Middle East or Hollywood of the East, despite having its beginnings in the city of Alexandria in the early 20th century. A strong industry grew in Egypt with a high distribution rate among the Arab world, and Cairo produces around three-quarters of the Arab world's screen output. It has had a large effect on the Arab film industry since the early 20th century.
Egyptian cinema is considered a pioneer in African and Arab film industries. Since 1896, over 4,000 films have been produced in Egypt. Egyptian films are typically spoken in the Egyptian Arabic dialect. In 1936, Egypt held its first ever Egyptian cinema festival in Cairo, followed by another one in 1938. Since 1952, Cairo has held the Egyptian Catholic Center for Cinema Festival; it is the oldest film festival in the Middle East. In 1976, the capital held the annual FIAPF-accredited Cairo International Film Festival, which has since been held annually, and there are many more film festivals held in Egypt.
History
Early history (1890s–1930s) The earliest projections by the Lumière brothers, using a Lumière cinematograph in Egypt took place on 15 November 1896, at the Toussoun Exchange in Alexandria, afterwards, in Cairo on 28 November, which is less than one year after the first projection in Paris, on 28 December 1895. Egypt's first cinema opened its doors in Alexandria in 1897.
A limited number of silent films were made starting from that date, starting with the first Egyptian film released on 20 June 1907, a short documentary film about the visit of Khedive Abbas II to the Institute of Mursi Abul-Abbas in Alexandria called The Visit of the Khedive Abbas Helmi (1907). In 1911, laws organizing film industry were enacted in Egypt. In 1917, the director Mohammed Karim established a production company in Alexandria. The company produced two films: Dead Flowers (1917) and Bedouin's honor (1918), which were shown in the city of Alexandria in early 1918.
The year 1923 saw the publication of the first periodical review on film "Animated Images" by Mohamed Tawfik who was the owner and Editor in chief. In 1923, film director Mohamed Bayoumi produced and directed Barsoum Looking for a Job, starring Bishara Wakim. The first book on film "The Dawn of Cinema" was released in 1924, written by the director and researcher Mahmoud Khalil Rachid. In 1925, the first large production company was established; the Egyptian Acting and Cinema Company, which belonged to the Misr Bank, which had been founded in the wake of the 1919 revolution by Talaat Harb. By 1926, 86 cinemas were operating in Egypt. In 1927, Aziza Amir produced Laila (1927), the first feature-length Egyptian film in history.
The following years saw the production of films such as Why Is the Sea Laughing? by Stephan Rosti, Tragedy at the Pyramids in 1928 by Ibrahim Lama, and others through the 1920s. Youssef Wahbi produced the 1930 film Zaynab starring Bahiga Hafez and based on the 1913 novel under the same name by Mohammed Hussein Heikal. Cairo's film industry became a regional force with the coming of sound. Between 1930 and 1936, various small studios produced at least 44 feature films.
Talkies In 1932, the first talkies were released in Egypt, with Mohammed Karim's Sons of Aristocrats starring Youssef Wahbi and Amina Rizk, to be the first sound film in Egypt, and the Middle East. It was followed by 1932's The Song of the Heart, the first musical in Egypt and the Middle East. The second musical was produced in 1933; The White Rose, also directed by Karim, featuring popular Egyptian singer Mohamed Abdel Wahab in his film debut. The musical film became a major hit in Egypt throughout the 1930s and 1940s, with high distribution among the Arab world.Several sound films were released in 1933, such as; The Marriage by Fatima Rushdi, Atone for Your Sin by Aziza Amir, The Night of a Lifetime by Mohamed Bayoumi, starring Amina Mohamed and Ahmad Farid, Enchanting Eyes by Ahmed Galal, starring Galal with Assia Dagher, The Accusation by Mario Volpe, starring Bahiga Hafez and Zaki Rostom. In 1934, Naguib el-Rihani starred in His Excellency Kechkech Bey, the sound version of the 1931 silent film of the same title.
Magda Wassef, in her book Egypte: 100 ans de Cinema, defines realism in cinema as a reflection of reality, how we understand reality, how we discover the factual causes of certain circumstances, as well as shedding light on the changes that occur from an individual perspective as well as a collective one. She mentions three films in the 1930s and 1940s Egyptian cinema that fulfill these elements of realism on different levels: Fritz Kramp's Lachine (1938), Kamal Selim's The Will (1939), and Kamel al-Telmessani's The Black Market (1945).
Studio Misr
In 1935, Studio Misr (also known as Studios Misr or in English as The Studio of Egypt), financed by industrialist Talaat Harb, emerged as the leading Egyptian equivalent to Hollywood's major studios, a role the company retained for three decades.Darwish, Mustafa, Dream Makers on the Nile: A Portrait of Egyptian Cinema, The American University in Cairo Press, Cairo, 1998, Pp. 12–13. Historian Samir Kassir notes (2004) that Studio Misr (founded 1935) in particular, "despite their ups and downs, were to make Cairo the third capital of the world's film industry, after Hollywood and Bombay, but ahead of Italy's Cinecittà." (Originally published in 2004)
Umm Kulthum starred in Weddad, her film debut in 1936, which was the first production of Studio Misr, the film was a hit in Egypt and the Arab world. Several films were released by the studio the best few years such as Salama Is Okay with Studio Misr in 1937, the film stars Naguib el-Rihani who was a theatre actor and starred in several comedy films in the 1930s and the 1940s.
Musicals Egyptian audience paid for tickets to watch musicals with the main reason of listening to their beloved singers. Singers such as Mohammed Abdel Wahab, Umm Kulthum in the 1930s, Laila Mourad, Abdel Aziz Mahmoud, Karem Mahmoud, Nour Al-Huda and others in the 1940s, shaped the map of musical film.
Theatre was the major force before film industry began attracting audiences, we can see singers singing over eights songs in one film. Laila Mourad and Mohammed Abdel Wahab were bankable stars. In the 1950s and 1960s, Abdel Halim Hafez was the main film star from the music industry, although, he quickly escaped from the musical genre and performed in drama and romance film genres, such as the 1962 film The Sins by Hassan el-Imam. Musical genre declined in the Egyptian film industry in the 1970s and 1980s and singers started to star in different genres, however, several singers from newer generations became film stars such as; Mohamed Fouad and Mostafa Amar. In the 2000s, Tamer Hosny is arguably the only singer in the film industry with over ten feature films in a leading role.
Golden Age: 1940s–1960s The 1940s, 1950s and the 1960s are generally considered the Golden Age of Egyptian cinema. In the 1950s, Egypt's cinema industry was the world's third largest. As in the West, films responded to the popular imagination, with most falling into predictable genres (happy endings being the norm), and many actors making careers out of playing strongly typed parts. In the words of one critic, "If an Egyptian film intended for popular audiences lacked any of these prerequisites, it constituted a betrayal of the unwritten contract with the spectator, the results of which would manifest themselves in the box office."
In 1940, the entrepreneur and translator Anis Ebeid established "Anis Ebeid Films", as the first subtitling company in Egypt and the rest of the Middle East, bringing hundreds of American and World movies to Egypt. Later he entered the movie distribution business too. Egyptian cinema flourished in the 1940s, with the number of films produced increased to 16 films in the 1944–45 season. This was due to the entry of investments after World War II into the film industry, and greater purchasing power of citizens. From 1945 to 1951, production increased to 50 films per year. By 1949, there were 244 cinemas and five studios with 11 shooting areas.
Egyptian films played an important role in linking Arab society and marketing Egyptian culture. More than any other method, it spread the Egyptian dialect. This status was affected by the waves that occurred in Arab relations, sometimes strengthening and sometimes weakening them, which led to an ebb and flow in the distribution of Egyptian film in Arab countries. A boycott of Egyptian films occurred at intermittent periods in the 1950s due to political tensions between Arab states in the Arab Cold War.
In 1944, the Al-Ahram Studio was established in the Giza district of Cairo, and became one of the most prestigious film (and later TV) production studios in the Middle East, in competition with Studio Misr. In the 1950s, Egypt ranked third in the world in number of films produced. In 1950, Studio Misr produced the film Baba Aris, the first Egyptian film entirely in natural color, starring Naima Akef, Fouad Shafik, Camelia, and Shoukry Sarhan.
In 1951, Mohamed Fawzi experimented with coloring two of his films: Love in Danger and The End of a Story. Unfortunately, the two films burned on their way from France to Egypt, and the black-and-white copies remained on Egyptian television. It was said that Mohamed Fawzi was not satisfied with the quality. The colors in the first film were poor, so he had to re-shoot it, which caused him huge financial losses. In 1956, the film Dalila was produced in Scope colours, starring Abdel Halim Hafez and Shadia. Afterwards, many Egyptian-colored Egyptian films were produced on a limited basis in the 1950s and 1960s, and in the 1970s, specifically after the 1973 October War, colors became prevalent in most films.
Political changes in Egypt after the overthrow of King Farouk in 1952 initially had little effect on Egyptian film. However the government under President Gamal Abdel Nasser sought control over the industry after turning to socialism in the 1960s.Farid, Samir, "An Egyptian Story" , Al-Ahram Weekly, 23–29 November 2006 Egyptian cinema reacted quickly to the July 1952 revolution, political films encountering the foreign influence started to be produced with films talking about patriotism and nationalism were in demand at the time. Hussein Sedki presented the film Down with Colonialism a few months after the revolution, in a natural and automatic reaction to the idea of national enthusiasm that was existed at that time, especially since the film worked on the nature of colonialism and not the internal matter related to the corruption of parties as happened after that, and the national feeling was very important to remain present, especially during the period of armed struggle against English colonialism, which began before the 1952 revolution with the abolition of 1936 Treaty when it was canceled by El-Nahas Pasha in October 1951. The tone of the films that worked on the July revolution increased, such as the 1955 film God is With Us, Ezz El-Dine Zulficar's Return My Heart in 1957. Other films were related to the feudal class and the pasha class, such as The Blazing Sun by Youssef Chahine, and the idea of corrupt, or otherwise pashas. The Egyptian cinema flourished in the 1950s.
In the 1950s and '60s, realism became a more dominant genre/artistic style. Some directors ' works were more consistent than others in the realist genre. These directors include Salah Abou Seif, Youssef Chahine, Atef Salem, Kamal al-Cheikh, Henri Barakat, Niazi Mostafa, and Tewfik Saleh. Tewfik Saleh was the only director who used realism as a consistent genre in all 6 of his films.