A retrospective exhibition on the work of acclaimed set designer Onsi Abou Seif that is part of the fourth El Gouna Film Festival opened on the first day of the festival at the TU Berlin University.

One of the exhibition walls holds a timeline of Abou Seif’s career with a list of awards and honours.

Abou Seif’s long, rich journey that starts at the Higher Institute of Cinema in 1967, and it has yielded – as well as beautiful scenography – a veritable treasure of drawings and sketches shown here along with video clips from his work on some of the most influential and important films in the history of the Egyptian cinema starting from Shadi Abdel-Salam’s The Mummy (1969) all progressing all the way through Youssef Chahine’s Alexandria: Again and Forever (1989).

In his early days, he also worked on other iconic films, such as Tawfiq Saleh’s Diary of a Country Prosecutor (1969).

Abu Seif’s films include such classics as Summer Thefts (1988) by Youssry Nasrallah, Dreams of Hind and Camelia (1988) by Mohamed Khan, Kit Kat (1991) by Daoud Abdel Sayed, Date Wine (1998) by Radwan Al-Kashef.

(Photo: courtesy of GFF)

(Photo: courtesy of GFF)

(Photo: courtesy of GFF)

(Photo: courtesy of GFF)

*A version of this article appears in print in the 29 October, 2020 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly