In the world of art and culture, the word ‘industry’ is sometimes given a negative connotation, as if it denied the existence of an artistic sentiment behind a film, a play, a novel, or any creative production.
In his speech accepting the Lifetime Career Achievement Award from El Gouna Film Festival, Egyptian director Marwan Hamed spent almost four minutes on stage naming film professionals he described as “partners”. From veteran actors and directors to producers, scriptwriters, mentors, novelists, executive producers, contemporary directors, film school instructors, costume designers, cinematographers, art directors, music composers and others, he noted how all of them had helped establish his prosperous filmmaking career.
Marwan’s speech was not the longest in the history of awardees. But taken alongside the statements of El Gouna’s Artistic Director Marianne Khoury about the importance of the festival’s role in supporting the Egyptian film industry, his list of mentions shows that films are not a one-person, artistic solo performance, but a collaborative dynamic where highly talented individuals step in to create the movie we end up watching.
In each of his films, Hamed’s choices and collaborations with the powerhouses of the industry allowed him to surpass his contemporaries commercially and internationally, eventually granting him the versatility to brilliantly navigate different genres, whether political, action, romance, horror, or historical dramas.
Being born the son of Wahid Hamed, who is regarded as one of Egypt’s greatest screenwriters, was a cornerstone in growing up in a family and professional circles which took cinema seriously, confronting state-censorship, conservative views and a continuously changing socio-political landscape.
Hamed’s debut short feature Li Li (2001), an adaptation of prolific novelist Youssef Idris, was produced by his father and featured multiple acting talents such as Amr Waked, Dina Nadeem, Saeed Saleh, and Samy El-Adl, and a strong behind-the-camera team. The film elegantly dissects the dilemma between sin and virtue in a young imam appointed to administer a mosque in a working-class neighbourhood wrecked by drug trafficking. On one hand, he preaches piety to the residents, but on the other, he has to fight his lust towards an attractive female neighbour. The film won the Audience Award at the 2001 Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival.
In 2007, luck struck again when he directed The Yacoubian Building. The film is based on an impressively bold novel by world-famous writer Alaa Al-Aswany and was produced by Issad Younis, a heavyweight on Egypt’s production scene, and was spearheaded with a star-loaded cast including Adel Imam, Yousra, Nour Al-Sherif, Khaled Saleh, Khaled Al-Sawy and many others.
Hamed delivered a masterpiece that captured the essence of the social and political decay and violence in post-2000 Egypt, through intimate and behind-closed-doors interactions between the characters, all of whom lived in an 1920 architectural gem of a residential building in downtown Cairo. Despite being a political drama, market-wise the film was a blockbuster and received waves of criticism from conservative politicians due to featuring a queer character. The film also bravely portrayed torture in police custody, whose proliferation led to the 25 January 2011 revolution.
The momentum of this powerful start was maintained with Ibrahim Al-Abyad (2009). Although it was vocally criticized at the time as distorting Egypt’s image abroad due to its violent storyline, the film can be considered one of the best Egyptian action films that captured, for the lack of a better description, the ‘aesthetics of violence’ in some extremely impoverished residential areas in Egypt.
Hamed is not a documentary filmmaker. With an exceptional script from Abbas Abu Al-Hassan, and a mesmerizing soundtrack by Hisham Nazieh, he created a tormented love story where childhood trauma, fragile masculinity, and the absence of rule of law drive the plot. The film follows Ibrahim Al-Abyad (Ahmed El-Saka), a thug and drug dealer in love with Horryia (Hend Sabry). Both live in a slum, extrajudicially run by a big-time trafficker (veteran actor Mahmoud Abdel Aziz). The film was shot in unauthorized settlements in old Cairo, with the help of executive assistant director/now producer Safy El-Din Mahmoud, whom Hamed mentioned as one of the many crew members who assisted in location settings, fight scenes, props, and extras’ management. Many local action films were created afterwards around similar themes, dubbed by the media as ‘thug films’, but none were able to capture Hamed’s intimate and bloody romance.
In his two-part The Blue Elephant (2014) and The Blue Elephant 2 (2019), Hamed works with best-selling novelist Ahmed Mourad, entering the almost abandoned world of Egyptian genre films. Since the 1990s, horror and psycho-thriller films have been close to non-existent, or poorly made. The first part, based on a novel by the same name, follows an alcoholic psychiatrist who lost his family in a car accident. He returns to work in a mental hospital containing defendants accused of murder who are awaiting psychiatric evaluation, a plot perfect for Hamed’s revolutionary visual storytelling, which set new standards for audiovisual effects in Egyptian cinema. There, he meets an old friend.
Starring popular actor Kareem Abdel Aziz, Nelly Kareem and Khaled Al-Sawy, the psycho-thriller deals with demonic possession, exorcism, and mental illness in a Muslim country, in a contemporary style that abandons Hollywood horror themes, creating a unique and very Egyptian infrastructure for a solid genre film. Mourad’s writing and Hamed’s visual representation left the regional MENA audience wanting more. The Blue Elephant 3 is expected to enter production at the end of 2024.
Like the traumatized protagonist in The Blue Elephant, the main characters in The Originals (2017) and Diamond Dust (2018) are also individuals crushed by everyday life but alienated in one way or another, whether from the corporate world or political injustice. Both films, also written in collaboration with Mourad, were box office hits and won best director awards at the Porto International Film Festival and Casablanca Arab Film Festival, respectively. The films were shot by cinematographer Ahmed Morsy, who skillfully captured true visual splendour, allowing Hamed’s creative visualization of the multilayered plots.
The Blue Elephant 2 and Kira & El Gin (2022), were produced by Synergy Productions, a filmmaking arm of United Media Services, which owns 40 companies that dominate news and media in Egypt. The transition to a bigger production allowed Hamed to go to the max in Kira & El Gin, a historical drama about resisting the British occupation during the early 20th century in Egypt. Based on Mourad’s book 1919 by Mourad, the film offers an anticolonial storyline, with two male bad boy characters, Kareem Abdel Aziz and Ahmed Ezz, leading a guerilla mob that engages British soldiers.
Thanks to its ultranationalist one-man-against-all hero, a super-popular genre in post-2013 Egypt, along with impressive historical research, custom design, and art direction, the film grossed 119 million Egyptian pounds (U.S. $2.3m), leading it to be screened at the 2023 International Rotterdam Film Festival as part of the Limelight section which programmes audience favourites and international award-winners.
Hopefully, Hamed’s career award at El Gouna will open a discussion about the necessity of building a solid, local, commercially successful industry, based on a strong community of film workers and professionals. A strong industry will increase the exposure of Egyptian films abroad and allow local filmmakers to be more liberal with genres and styles. Marwan Hamed is a great example.
