Egypt’s cinematic heritage spans over a century, boasting an expansive body of work second only to that of Hollywood’s. Egyptian cinema is the gift that keeps on giving, a massive ecosystem of revolutionaries, visionaries and creators all eager to give a voice to their respective generations and the circumstances that shaped them. As we navigate life in the time of COVID-19, with all the turmoil, harsh realities and difficult conversations the pandemic has forced upon us, it helps to remember where we come from, what we have been through and how some of the biggest issues of modern Egyptian life were dealt with in Egyptian cinema. Below is a brief chronology of modern-day Egypt’s social, political and emotional evolution in film. Hayat au Maut (Life or Death) (1955) This black and white thriller is one of the genre’s finest works, earning the film’s director Kamal El Shaikh a Palme D’Or nomination at the 1955 Cannes Film Festival. The plot follows the story of a man who send his young daughter to pick up a prescription after he suffers a heart attack, but the pharmacist later realizes that he mixed up the…
