In a streaming world, you’re not likely to run into a movie unless you’re explicitly looking for it. That, or an algorithm has decided you’d like it because your niece watched something completely dissimilar when she was visiting last week. It’s easy to miss out on old gems that you may not have seen. We round down 5 of our favorite Egyptian film classics that you need to see:
Written by Salah Abu Seif and Lenin El Masry, Al Bedaya is stacked with great Egyptian actors at the top of their game. A plane crash lands in an oasis and as the passengers adapt, they form a microcosm of the state with Gamil Ratib as the opportunist and Ahmed Zaki as the socialist revolutionary. It’s funny, it’s political, and it is very much its own thing.
Not often raved about but a hidden gem nonetheless. Al Daraga Al Taltah highlights the plight of some disenfranchised football fans as they struggle against a power elite trying to get rid of them by eliminating the only seats they can afford – the 3rd class seats. Once again, both Gamil Ratib and Ahmed Zaki star and the movie features a wonderfully powerful Soad Hosni. It’s rife with comedic talents like Sanaa Younis, Ahmed Ratib, and Abdel Azeem Abdel Haq.
Breaking Bad before Breaking Bad was a thing, El Keef was released in 1985 and features Yehia El Fakharany in the role of a chemist who gets pulled into the drug business through his brother Gamal Abou El Azm, played by a brilliant Mahmoud Abdel Aziz who manages to says things like “Dahna elee darwikna el labaree gowa el shabaree, bel dahlakah” as though they mean something.
Starring Fouad El Mohandes, Ard El Nifaq follows the trials of a cowardly man resorting to magical pills to become a better sycophant so that he can survive his wife, his boss, and his neighbors. Things get much more complicated when he accidentally takes truth pills rather than hypocrisy pills. There’s nothing wrong with your screen, it’s a black and white movie.
Directed and adapted by Dawoud Abdel Sayid from a story by Ibrahim Aslan, Al Kit Kat features another strong performance by Mahmoud Abdel Aziz as the blind ex-cleric Hosny, who now drinks beer, sings and plays the oud in drug dens, and drives a Vespa through the neighborhood. The whole movie moves with a bittersweet swag that’s reminiscent of some Italian classics.
