Egyptian director Mohammed al Qalyoubi has wrapped up shooting a feature film entitled Kharif Adam (Adam’s Autumn) and a documentary 52-minute film entitled Ostorat Rose al Yousef (Rose al Yousef Legend).
“Producer Marian Khouri offered me to make a film and participate in tackling the issue related to the Arab women work. Among the names which I chose was Rose al Yousef because I thought that would be tempting for me particularly in view of the fact that this woman worked hard and left evident fingerprints on art and press. All of this made me feel that I would direct an exciting film after I revealed many secrets surrounding her life and rare detailed information on her,” Qalyoubi told the Arabic Syrian daily Tishreen.
Qalyoubi works as an instructor at the Higher Cinema Institute and Arts Academy in Cairo. He practiced critic writing after graduation from the school of engineering in 1969 and got his Ph.D. in Cinema and TV from Moscow.
He directed many documentary and narrative films including the long documentary film Mohammed Bayyoumi in 1990, Thalathah A’la al Tariq (Three on The Way) in 1993 (long narrative), al Bahr Beyedhak (Sea Laughs) in 1994 (narrative). This is in addition to Ahlam Masroukah (Stolen Dreams), 1998 (long narrative), Etfarrag Ya Salam (narrative) and Salflot in 2000 (short documentary).
“I like to work in two fields: the documentary and feature films and would like to combine between them. Generally, a documentary film is mainly based on documents but a narrative film incorporates documents within its scenes. Therefore, differences between the two are not big but the director has to know how to portray a document in a drama style in the documentary films in order to convince the audience and the events observers. This is exactly what I do in all my films,” said Qalyoubi.
He added, “cinema for me means expressing oneself which is the best means to convey messages to the recipient.” -- Albawaba.com
