The Palestinian cause has not been absent from the history of Egyptian cinema

Since its inception, Egyptian cinema has been interested in having an active role in presenting the Palestinian issue on the golden screen, specifically since 1948 with the first film presented in conjunction with the “Palestine War”, which was known as the Nakba. All aim to document the spirit of resistance and the brutality of the Israeli occupation.

The first Arab film about Palestine

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“A Girl from Palestine” is the first Egyptian and Arab film that deals with the Palestinian cause, as it was produced in 1948 and its producer, Aziza Amir, was keen to convey the brutality of the Zionist enemy, and to emphasize the spirit of resistance, sacrifice and martyrdom for the sake of Palestine, through the work that he starred and directed by her husband, artist Mahmoud Zulfiqar And she starred in Suad Muhammad in the character “Salma”, the Palestinian girl.

The author Youssef Jawhar was keen to confirm Egyptian support for Palestine, through the hero, who is a pilot officer who defends the Palestinian territories during the war. .

Corrupt weapons

In a humane manner, some of the films dealt with the crisis of supplying corrupt weapons to the army in the Palestine war.

The film “Land of Heroes” was shown in 1953 and starring Coca and Abbas Faris, a humanitarian epic with a hero who chose to participate in the war and liberate Palestine. He falls in love with a girl in Gaza and decides to marry her but loses his sight in one of the war operations as a result of corrupt weapons. His father is one of those involved in supplying these weapons.

The story was presented in a different format through the movie “God is with us” in 1955, and the film was written by Ihssan Abdel Quddous and directed by Ahmed Badrakhan, and starring Faten Hamama and Imad Hamdi. Officer Imad, the hero of events, was injured in one of the operations and had his arm amputated.

The film documents that stage also through scenes of the wounded and maimed who were injured by the corrupt weapons, and ironically also that the father of his fiancée is one of those involved in supplying these weapons. https://www.youtube.com/embed/ZbBEZqc1_f8?version=3&rel=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&fs=1&hl=ar&autohide=2&wmode=transparent

Liberation of Palestine

In the experience of director Kamal Al-Sheikh “The Land of Peace” in 1957 starring Faten Hamama and Omar Al-Sharif, he tried to focus on the battles of the fedayeen in order to liberate Palestine from the Zionist enemy and highlight the difficulties that the heroes face in Palestine, such as the enemy blowing up fuel tanks, and other criminal acts. The movie focused on it.

Like most of the works that dealt with the issue at that stage, the events were presented in a romantic form, through a love story that brought the Egyptian fida’i together with a Palestinian girl who also participates in the resistance.

A number of Egyptian artists who speak the Palestinian dialect appeared in the film, such as Faten Hamama, Abdel Warith Aser and Tawfiq al-Daqn.

Historical projection

The greed in the Palestinian territories is not the result of the moment, and the crises that the Palestinian people went through also began before the Palestine War, which is why director Youssef Shaheen uses the events of his film “Al-Nasser Salah El-Din” 1963 and the battles that Salah El-Din Al-Ayoubi fought as a kind of projection of modern history.

The film did not adhere to historical accuracy as much as it cast a shadow over the current era and conflicts in a symbolic way. Shaheen used battles and events as a historical cover to present the Palestinian crisis, and showed European ambitions in the land of Palestine, which on the face of it are defending religion but mainly in order to achieve interests, wealth and gains, and build Kingdoms, as they left their country to practice all kinds of violence and persecution against the Palestinian people.

Documenting a fighter’s journey

In 1992, the artist Nour al-Sharif participated in the production of the movie “Naji Al-Ali” directed by Atef Al-Tayeb and written by Bashir Al-Deek. Al-Arabiya, as it angered the Arab regimes, which Al-Ali attacked in his drawings. https://www.youtube.com/embed/IBMo34HedyE?version=3&rel=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&fs=1&hl=ar&autohide=2&wmode=transparent

The uprising in a youth film

In 2001, and through a youthful experience in the movie “Friends or Business” by Mustafa Qamar, Hani Salama, Amr Waked, and director Ali Idris, the film presented a negative model for people who exploit the case in order to promote their personal benefits, through the character of the channel president who filmed in the Palestinian territories to achieve gains. However, contact with the real struggle changed the ideas of the opportunist broadcaster and his friend, after their insistence on conveying the facts as they are.

The film succeeded in bringing back the enthusiasm for talking about the issue in the cinema again, as well as touching on the Palestinian uprising and one of the martyrdom operations.

The resistance in the 1950s and 1960s was the focus of events in the 2004 film “Gate of the Sun”, directed by Yousry Nasrallah, based on the novel of the same name by the writer Elias Khoury.

The events tell the story of the Palestinian hero, Yunus, who decides to join the resistance while his wife sticks to staying in her village in the Galilee, and meets her in the Bab al-Shams cave. Nasrallah filmed the scenes of the film in Syria and Lebanon.