After 20 years in the making, Egyptian producer Alabbas Bin Alabbas finally released Egypt’s first animated feature film ‘Al Fares w Al Amira’ or The Knight and the Princess at the 3rd edition of El Gouna International Film Festival (GIFF). The producer put the project on hold regularly over the last 17 years, because he would get recruited to producer TV series. Alabbas would use the profits he would make from his TV series production to invest in his life-long dream; creating Egypt’s first feature film. This animation resembles a familiar Disney story, Aladdin, in its aesthetic. But instead, it tells the story of the seventh century Umayyad general Mohammed Bin Qasim Al Thaqafi who conquered Sindh, located in modern-day Pakistan, after battling Raja Dahir, the last Hindu ruler of the country. The Knight and the Princess tells the story of Muhammad bin Qasim Al Thaqafi, an Arab knight who freed Arab women and children from the captives of the Indian Ocean pirates, at the age of 15 years. Two years later, the knight conquered the entire country of Sindh. During his first voyage, Muhammad bin Qasim Al Thaqafi met an…
