English translation. The article was originally written in Arabic and includes colloquial Egyptian expressions. This version preserves the substance and critical tone while translating those expressions into readable English.
Egyptian cinema has a long and distinguished history, and that makes me ask: will we continue to preserve that history, or are the current directions of the people making cinema increasingly shaped by personal preferences? From my point of view, much of what is happening is an unjustifiable bias — and at times feels like a deception practiced on an audience that is looking for cinema that speaks to its problems and the difficulties of everyday life, whether by presenting those problems honestly or by searching for possible solutions.
Many films today, however, seem to reflect the inclinations of producers, directors and selected stars more than they serve a clear subject or purpose. Themes are sometimes chosen without a real objective, and a “message” is then forced into the film after the fact — assuming there was a substantial subject there in the first place. New performers appear in one production and quickly become the stars of the next, with the conversation revolving around which film they appeared in, what leading role they have now been offered, how much they are being paid, and which earlier work the new film resembles.
Borrowing from other films has become so common that it hardly needs proving; an audience member familiar with international cinema can often recognize it simply by watching. Egyptian viewers follow world cinema closely, from films themselves to posters and promotional ideas. Yet a new culture has emerged in which cinematic knowledge is treated as secondary as long as the performer is considered talented. The actor is then asked to carry whatever is placed in front of him, even when the people involved cannot agree on what kind of film they have actually made.
If contemporary Egyptian films were to be classified, we might expect familiar categories such as political, social, musical or revue films, melodrama and comedy, with action films added to the list. Yet some productions resist any clear classification. Films are called comedy, horror or action even when what appears on screen points somewhere else. Titles such as Karkar, Asad Wa Arbaa Qutat, Ana Mish Ma’ahom and Ahlam Haqiqiya illustrate, for me, the confusion around genre, imitation and the identity of a film. Sometimes neither you nor I can confidently classify what we are watching; only those who made it seem able to do so.
Then there is the question of the people who work behind the film. I am not speaking here about the director, production designer, director of photography or editor themselves, but about the assistants without whom a film could not be made. That is not an exaggeration; it is a practical reality. The gap in pay can be enormous: a director might receive hundreds of thousands while an assistant receives a small fraction of that amount; the same disparity can be found in camera, art and editing departments.
And the issue is not only money. Assistants may struggle to find work because of the system of closed circles and cliques. There would be little problem if every group simply worked with its own team while the wider market remained open. The real problem begins when the whole market becomes one closed circle. You can be highly skilled at your job and still find that there is no place for you simply because you are not considered part of the group.