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Al-Ahram Weekly 12 - 18 August 1999 Issue No. 442 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 12 - 18 August 1999 Issue No. 442
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Profile Books Features Travel Living Sports Time Out Chronicles People Cartoons Letters Toasting Date Wine
AT THE Fifth National Festival for Egyptian Cinema (NFEC) this week, director Radwan El-Kashef and his recently released film, Araq Al-Balah (Date Wine), were vindicated with a vengeance, writes Mohamed El-Assyouti. The NFEC screening hall at the Cairo Opera House was packed an hour and a half before screening time, and angry spectators who had been denied entry forced their way in, crowding the hall's corridors. At the festival's concluding ceremony, Date Wine was awarded six prizes: best film, best director, best screenplay (written by El-Kashef), best actress (Sherihan), best cinematography (Tarek El-Tilmisani) and best editing (Rashida Abdel-Salam).
Enthusiastically received by many critics, some of whom described it as one of the most important Egyptian films of the decade, Date Wine bagged 10 international prizes before finally being released in Egypt last month. Nevertheless, it was shown in only three theatres for no more one week.
An uproar ensued; in the press and at numerous seminars, filmmakers, critics and other intellectuals spoke out in fury against distribution monopolies and a restructuring of the Egyptian cinema market that is fast squeezing out all "serious" films for the sake of a virtually total domination of light entertainment, whether imported from Hollywood or locally produced.
According to El-Kashef, "there is a monopoly on film distribution in Egypt that is almost entirely controlled by one man, Mohamed Hassan Ramzi, who only promotes the films that secure him immediate profits. And since, clearly, only one type of film is sure to do that, Ramzi is keen on owning the rights to most films shown in the country, in order to control the release and screening duration of those films that may pose an obstacle to the profit-making productions."
