For the second time in the past few weeks, young Egyptian actress, Mai Izziddin, faced failure after achieving only modest sales for her latest movie Farah, which started screening a short while ago.
The new movie achieved 160 thousand EGP in its first week, because disputes occurred with not only Mai but also all the participants in the movie starting from fellow actors and ending with producers.
The movie was a failure from its very beginning and for many reasons; first the producer himself, Mohammed Naser, who does not possess any experience in this field, wrote the scenario. Second, the producer built the whole film and tailored it to suit a seven-year-old girl who was treated as a big movie star. Third, after the shooting was complete, Midhat Madkour, head of censorship announced that the Egyptian censorship only omitted 3 phrases and all the news about using children commercially was not true and was a mere maneuver of the producer to promote the movie.
Critics refuse to link the movie failure to the bad timing and exams, saying that the movie was screened in 30 cinemas and collected 160 EGP in the first week while [Troy] and [The Day After Tomorrow] were screened in only five cinemas and achieved high income at the same period.
Mai has filed a complaint to the Egyptian actors association and another to the Egyptian cinema association against the producer of the film “Farah” demanding the film be halted and forbidden from screening until the advertising posters for it are changed.
Mai was shocked when she saw large posters of herself on the streets all around Egypt showing her almost nude. The actress investigated the matter and it turned out to be that the producer of her latest film placed a photo of her head on an almost nude body, in an attempt to attract more viewers.
Mai told newspapers in an interview that the movie faced many problems with Egyptian censorship. She added that while she was on a visit to the UAE, director Akram Fareed called her and told her that almost 12 scenes of her movie were omitted, which were played by the child Noor Ihsan. Mai said that omitting these scenes will ruin the dramatic texture of the movie and will affect the story a great deal.
Mai added that the movie had been modified according to the censorship’s regulations before they started filming. After the latest alterations, the movie will only last for 85 minutes, which makes it look like a documentary. –Albawaba.com
© 2004 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
