Nantes Film Fest to Screen Asmaa al Bakri’s Films

The organizers of Nantes Film Festival in France have decided to allocate a week for screening the Egyptian director Asmaa al Bakri’s films, according to the daily al Ahram. 

Bakri has caught the eyes of the French festival organizers after the success that her latest film Shahatin Wa Nubalaa (Beggers and Nobles) achieved last year in many French cities. 

The Egyptian director will also give two lectures at Nantes University, the first will be about “the royal family in the Islamic history” and the second about “the Egyptian cinema”. 

Meanwhile, Bakri is preparing for the new film al Unf Wal Sukhriyah (Violence and Sarcasm), based on the story of the Egyptian writer and Paris resident Albeir Qseiri.  

The film stars Hisham Salim, Salwa Khattab, Mahmoud al Gundi, Aesha al Kilani and a number of young actors.  

It tells the tale of a number of patriots in the 1950s who fight against oppression and face the dictator.  

Al Unf Wal Sukhriyah is a joint Egyptian-French production, and the second one directed by al Bakri based on Qseiri’s story, following the film Shahatin Wa Nubalaa. Her first film was Kunshirto Darb al Saadeh. 

Later, the French TV5 Channel has agreed to purchase 10 short documentary films produced by the Nile Culture channel about a number of Egyptian artists. The films portray the career life of the director Asma Bakri, actors Noor al-Sharif and Abla Kamel, writer Jamal Ghaitani, fine artists Adam Hanin and George Bahjuri, opera pianist Nasma Abdulaziz, and the former Minister of Culture Tharwat Ukashah -- Albawaba.com