The experience of cinematic cooperation between Egypt and Sudan

Sudanese filmmaker Said Hamed sat at a press conference in a Cairo hotel in 2009 to reveal an artistic surprise related to the announcement of a new film called "The Road to Darfur." The importance of the event was increased by the presence of the late artist Omar Sharif, who confirmed that he may be one of the stars participating in the film.

The ceremony was attended by a large number of stars, including Mohamed Henedy, Ashraf Abdel Baqi, Talaat Zakaria, Fotouh Ahmed and others. At that time, Hamed cut the way to link the film to political events, declaring that it deals with the issue of Darfur only from a humanitarian point of view and does not address the political aspects, and that it is a joint Egyptian-Sudanese-Emirati production.

Year after year passed without the film seeing the light of day for unknown reasons, and when journalists surrounded Saeed Hamed with their questions about the film, he attributed the matter to production costs, and the budget allocated for the film at that time was about $ 10 million, in addition to the budget of the project to translate it into several languages and plans to show it in several countries.

Thus, "The Road to Darfur" joined the list of promising films that did not see the light of day, despite the state of media attention surrounding its announcement, which was also due to the participation of actors from Egypt, Sudan, the Arab world, Chad, France, Britain and Belgium. Saeed Hamed then focused his efforts on theater and television drama.

The experience of Sudanese director Said Hamed is one of the most prominent successes in Egyptian cinema for non-Egyptian directors who were able to express the Egyptian spirit. It is an individual experience of cinematic cooperation between Egypt and Sudan, but I am not exaggerating if I say that it made an important mark on Egyptian cinema during the turn of the millennium.

Hamed, who exceeded his sixty year, was born and raised in Sudan before moving to Cairo in the early eighties of the last century to study cinema and make his artistic way moving from one success to another, starting from the lowest professional ladder in the film industry with jobs in the management of filming and decoration sites, before becoming an assistant director and then a director, and his professional story is a story of real struggle that culminated in great success.

Through a number of films, Hamed was able to forge a new relationship between the south and the north, as he presented the people of Upper Egypt in a youth comedy framework that has become one of the hallmarks of Egyptian cinema in recent decades, a film "Saidi at the American University" in 1998, during which he drew the features of the triangle of complex social relations between the people of Upper Egypt (Upper Egypt) and the people of Lower Egypt (northern Egypt) and the Western influence on them. He then forged another relationship in the same comedy form, but between the people of the southern Mediterranean and northern European in the film "Hammam in Amsterdam" in 1999.

Many considered Saeed Hamed one of those who launched the phenomenon of clean cinema, and although the term is controversial in the cinematic medium and Hamed does not adopt it and was not promoted in the media, it remained real from a realistic point of view.

In the 2008 film The President's Cook, he captured the two most important points in the pyramid of Egyptian interests, namely the president and food, and mixed them in a surprising way. In the film "The Next Statement Came to Us" in 2001, he presented the world of satellite news that was rising at the time, and addressed the issues of Chechnya and Palestine in a comical and profound way.

These films generally fall under the rubric of "clean cinema", that is, cinema without nudity, kisses and indecent words. Many considered Said Hamed one of the initiators of this cinematic phenomenon – I mean clean cinema – and although the term is controversial in the cinematic medium and is not adopted or promoted by Hamed, it has remained realistic from a realistic point of view.

Film Cooperation between Egypt and Sudan

Said Hamed has not yet obtained Egyptian citizenship despite living in the country for more than 40 years, and several years ago he was only exempted from residency requirements. Despite this, he is a strong advocate of film cooperation not only between Egypt and Sudan, but also between Egypt and African countries.

In 2015, he and a group of artists from Egypt and Sudan launched the "Sons of the Nile Initiative" in Khartoum to enhance heritage, cultural and knowledge cooperation between the two countries. At the time, Hamid expressed his hope that the initiative would result in documentaries about the African continent that reflect its arts and culture. At that time, the Egyptian delegation visiting Khartoum was received with a great official and popular reception. Unfortunately, nothing further has happened.

Officially, there is no framework for film cooperation between Egypt and Sudan. Both countries have independent cultural and film institutions, although there are attempts to cooperate in production and distribution; almost three years ago, Sudanese officials inaugurated the reopening of a cinema after 3 years of closure with an Egyptian film, "Abla Tamtam" by Egyptian director Ali Idris, produced in 30.

In practice, as usual, the film industry has transcended formal frameworks, and many producers, directors and even editors have engaged in joint film projects, many of which have been highly successful.

One of the most prominent Sudanese actors in Egyptian cinema was the late Ibrahim Khan, and one of the most prominent works that brought together Egyptian and Sudanese teams was the film "Journey of Eyes" directed by Sudanese director Anwar Hashem in 1983 and participated in it from Egypt Somaya Al-Alfi and the late Amin Al-Hunaidi, and its story revolves around two young men from Sudan who arrived in Cairo to study, one of them lives in difficult economic conditions but struggles to achieve success, and the other is well-off but failed. An example of modern Egyptian films is the 2019 film "You Will Die at Twenty" directed by Amjad Aboulela and co-produced by Egyptian producer Hossam Alwan and the Egyptian company Film Clinic.