Hossam Fahmy-Cairo

The organizing committee of the 41st Cairo International Film Festival (CIFF), which starts late this month, has honored the Egyptian director, author and producer Sherif Arafa, by awarding him the Faten Hamama Award for his long career in the Egyptian film industry over the past three decades.

Arafa is one of the most prominent directors of the new Egyptian cinema. But unlike the other directors of the New Realism stream, he has continued to make films and produce revenues to this day. How did this happen? What are his most prominent works throughout these years?

Musical comedy
Arafa started his career with a series of political and social satire films made by the author Maher Awad, films made in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Among them are "The Dwarves are Coming" with Yahya Al Fakharani and Laila Alawi, "The Third Class" with Ahmed Zaki and Souad Hosni, "Ya Mahlabiya Ya" with Laila Alawi, Hisham Selim and Ala Walid Al Deen, and finally in his most prominent film "Sama Hess" with Mamdouh Abdel Alim and Laila Alawi. .

Best Imam Movies
After that, Arafa co-starred with writer Waheed Hamed and star Adel Imam in the making of five films today called "five-nineties", which many critics consider the best films of Imam throughout his history.

In these films, Arafa and Hamed, a comedian who is loved by millions of Egyptians in a new dress, is a political satire, through films that attack the authority and get involved in conflicts with it directly.

This quintuple of "Playing with the Adult" began in 1991, "Terrorism and Kebab" in 1992, and then continued through the films "Forgotten, Dark Birds, Sleeping in Honey".

Beholder, Abboud and Bean China
Arafa moved to the stage of the blatant comedy, in which he is credited with continuing with the stars of the new generation appeared for the first time in his films, so began the experience with the late Walidin in the films "Nazer, Abboud on the border, the son of Ezz" and then completed the march with Mohamed Henedy in the film " Great Bean of China. "

It is interesting to note that Waliuddin played his most famous role in the 1990s with a blitz with Arafa in the film "Terrorism and Kabab" with Imam, the same thing that happened with Henedy, who appeared in a lone scene in the movie "Forgotten."

Mafia and the "Action" stage
At the beginning of the new millennium, Arafa decided to completely change his skin and take on a new challenge, creating Egyptian action films that mimic Hollywood's productions, and the attempt has already begun with the film "Mafia" in which Ahmed El Sakka was presented as the first star.

The attempt continued after that in the film "Wad El Amma", which co-starred Karim Abdel Aziz and Sherif Mounir, but we note the emergence of a new element is the desire of Arafa to add the national dimension to the events through a plot mixing "Action" and the story of an intelligence agent trying to restore an Egyptian woman She was kidnapped by an Israeli agent who deceived her, married her, and took her to Israel.

The corridor is courting the army
Last year, Arafa returned to Action once again, after a short trip with the film "The Treasure," which is set in a historical context about the relationship between religion, power and people in Egypt through different ages, but this return came this time directly through the gate " Army".

Arafa decided to make the film "The Passage" about the story of an Egyptian battalion during the war of attrition, and therefore decided to be subjected to one of the most sensitive periods in Egypt's modern history, namely the defeat of 1967 to the Israeli enemy, but the film did not get enough technical and intellectual analysis as a result of preoccupation Everyone has a media-friendly atmosphere that felt that this film is a national product and should not be criticized in any way.

This atmosphere began with buses belonging to the Future Watan Party, which is affiliated with the Sultanate, which transports the masses free of charge to watch the movie in theaters, and continued through the television screening of the film on October 6, accompanied by honors and hosts of the film's heroes. Some in his reactions, to make the masses feel as if we are in front of a representative team who thinks they fought a real war.

Ultimately - despite this comedic ending - Arafa remains one of the most important Egyptian filmmakers in recent years and undoubtedly deserves to be honored through the oldest official Egyptian festival.