Recent Egyptian blockbuster, El Set (The Woman, 2025), opens in 1967 at Om Kalthoum’s iconic concert at the Olympia in Paris. The camera drifts across a packed theatre, with faces tilted upward, eyes fixed on the stage, and an audience comprising different nationalities brought together by a single voice. Applause swells, the lights are dim, and before a note is sung, the film establishes a space charged with reverence, awe, and collective pride. In these first moments, it becomes clear just how far Om Kalthoum’s influence had traveled in the 20th century. The opening scene serves also as a reminder that she was not just a singer, but a symbol of Egypt itself. Known as the “Kawkab al-Sharq”, meaning star of the East, the Egyptian singer embodied nationalism on a global stage. The power of the opening scene is in its visual language as the film constantly transitions between real archival footage from the concert and recreated scenes that mirror it almost exactly. The only distinction was time itself: black-and-white images faded into color, past into present. To the audience, this seamless interplay signals the intelligence of the film’s direction…
