Art Alert: Screening of Dawood Abdel-Sayed's Ard El-Khof at Cairo’s Elbet Alwan

Ahram Online , Monday 1 Aug 2016

The film is written and directed by Egypt's renowned director Dawood Abdel-Sayed

Ard el khof
(Photo: still from Land of Fear)

Zamalek’s Elbet Alwan will screen Ard El-Khof (Land of Fear, 1999) by Egyptian renowned director Dawood Abdel-Sayed on 10 August.

The film, which is also written by Abdel-Sayed, stars Ahmed Zaki, Sami El-Adl, Farah, Ezzat Abo Ouf and Hamdy Gheith.

The story follows a police officer assigned to a secret mission of infiltrating a drug dealers’ community. With time he forgets his mission, and lives as a drug dealer. The film sheds light on notions of good, evil and power.

Land of Fear is one of Abdel-Sayed's most popular films, with it winning the best script award and best Arabic film in the 23rd Cairo International Film Festival.

Abdel-Sayed is one of Egypt's most accomplished directors and has to date directed 12 films, many of them award-winning. In 2013, three of his films were chosen among the Dubai International Film Festival (DIFF)'s list of the 100 Most Important Arab Films: El-Kit Kat (1991), Land of Fear (1999) and Messages from the Sea (2010).

Abdel-Sayed is credited for pioneering "new realism," a school of thought in Egyptian cinema that introduced action to the melodramatic movement of the 1960-70s.

He graduated from the Higher Institute of Cinema in Egypt in 1967 and went on to work as an assistant director on the set of The Land (Al-Ard) by the legendary Youssef Chahine.

Abdel Sayed went on to become a member of the Higher Film Festival Commission and the Higher Council of Culture in Egypt.
He has also joined film festivals as a jury, most notably the 8th Biennale of Arab Cinemas in Paris (Institut du Monde Arabe).

Programme:
Wednesday 10 August, 8pm
Elbet Alwan, 5 Ahmed Heshmat Street, Zamalek, Cairo

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