Algeria’s 10th Oran Arabic Film Festival, to be held in July, announced that it will honour a number of prominent figures in Arab cinema, including late Egyptian actress Karima Mokhtar. 

Mokhtar, who died in January, started her career in entertainment in the 1950s on the popular Egyptian children’s radio show Baba Sharou, and starred in dozens of popular films, plays and TV dramas.

Her first role on the big screen was in the film Thaman El-Horeya (The Price of Freedom, 1963).

She gained popular acclaim for her role as Zeinab, a mother of seven, in the highly successful film El-Hafeed (The Grandson, 1974) opposite the late Nour El-Sharif and Mervat Amin.

This was followed by a series of popular roles that cemented her reputation as the ultimate mother character in the Egyptian art scene, the most notable of which is her part in the classic play El-Eyal Kebret (The Kids Have Grown Up, 1979).

Mokhtar’s son, Moataz El-Demerdash, will accept the award in her name.

This edition also celebrates other important icons of Arab cinema, including the late Algerian comedic actor Hassan El-Hassani.

El-Hassani was known for numerous skits, plays and films, in which he embodied Boubagra, a naive peasant full of good sense and wisdom who lives through socioeconomic changes.

A book on the life and career of El-Hassani, written by Said Bin Zarqa, will be released at the festival.

The centennial of Algerian Berber writer, poet, anthropologist and linguist Mouloud Mammeri will also be a part of the upcoming edition.

Mammeri wrote the 1952 novel El-Rabwa El-Manseya, which, like many of his works, was adapted to film.

He was the first president of the Algerian Writers Union.

Late Palestinian film critic Bashar Ibrahim will also be honoured at the festival.

Ibrahim, one of the most prominent film critics in the Arab world, has enriched the Arab cinema library with a large number of publications.

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