Prominent Egyptian director Marwan Hamed, best known internationally for groundbreaking epic “The Yacoubian Building,” more recently shot “El Set,” a biopic of Egyptian icon Umm Kulthum, who is considered the Arab world’s greatest singer.
Kulthum has also been praised by Bob Dylan and Led Zeppelin’s Robert Plant, among other Western artists, and sampled by Beyonce and Shakira.
Hamed’s new Arabic blockbuster with international ambitions, now in post, features Egyptian star Mona Zaki playing the vocalist born in the Nile delta village of Tamay al‐Zahirah, who from the late 1920s onwards became the first Arab singer to disseminate her work to the masses via the new technologies of the times: radio, the phonograph, cinema and television.
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In the process, Kulthum recorded some 300 songs over a 60-year career, while conquering millions of fans and disrupting gender norms with her powerful, often politically charged, music.
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A sneak 18-minute peek of footage from “El Set” – which is co-produced by Egypt’s Synergy Films, Film Square and Film Clinic, and by Saudi Arabian film fund Big Time Investment – will be unveiled during the upcoming Atlas Workshops held during Morocco’s Marrakech Festival, which opens today.
Variety spoke to Hamed about what Kulthum stands for beyond her superb singing and why she is still very timely and relevant today.
Umm Kulthum obviously is the Arab world’s greatest singer. But she also carries a lot of symbolic significance. She’s a Muslim woman artist who was able to transcend all sexual, religious, political and national barriers. Talk to me about what aspects of her story and personality “El Set” delves into?
The most interesting thing in the film is basically: How did this little girl who used to dress as a boy in a very poor village become this icon? That is the main aspect. It’s not only about her success in music, but also: How did she become a female icon? That is really what the film is about. Her transformation and her struggle with society and how she changed the way she was perceived, until she rises, and her nickname in the Arab world becomes El Set, which means “The Lady.” That is why we chose “El Set” as the film’s title. It’s her moniker in the Arab world. But at the same time, it really represents her journey. In doing our research we realized that – wow – she did amazing stuff!
What are some of the most significant facets of Umm Kulthum’s journey?
For example, she was one of the first women to get elected in the [Arab] musician’s syndicate. She won that battle, and that was something that wasn’t common at the time, in the mid-40s. She also really defied society when it comes to marriage and family, and all this tradition of the pressure that society puts on a woman, and this kind of – how can I call it – struggle between career and family. What’s amazing about her is that she made her own choices. The ones she believed in. Regardless of what anyone else thought she should do. This is very important, and is, I think, the most powerful thing she did. She made her own choices, and achieved that in a society that did not live that way. Whether that was the society of her village or the monarchy, or the post-revolution, post-1952, Egypt.
Tell me more about the film’s female empowerment elements
I mean, she had her moments at every twist and turn of the societal changes of that time. At the same time, she exerted lots of political influence. When you look at her story today – and put it in the context of today’s world – there are a lot of parallels you can make. That is what is so interesting about her story, that you can really correlate it to the present. So, basically the narrative follows this in a way, in a bit of a non-linear manner.
What about Umm Kulthum’s personality?
We’ve explored her inner fears, because this is something that she and a lot of other people have spoken about. Many people have this far-removed impression of her because she’s always shot in long shots from afar on stage, projecting a certain [distanced] image that she intentionally tried to maintain. But the film is also a great opportunity to delve into her inner fears, because she wasn’t a superwoman. She had her fears and to achieve what she did, it wasn’t easy.
Talk to me about working with Mona Zaki who of course is coming off the recent success of female empowerment thriller “Flight 404,” which is Egypt’s Oscar contender and has travelled outside the region.
This is a very demanding role that needed someone with Mona’s abilities. She puts in a tour de force performance that I think will have a very strong emotional impact on audience. In terms of prep, for an entire year Mona went through singing lessons, movement lessons, dialect coaching, and lots of makeup rehearsals. She had to sit in the [makeup] chair for six hours every day before the cameras rolled. It’s a very demanding role because you are not just focusing on one period of Umm Kulthum’s life, you are jumping back and forth between lots of different moments. That in itself is very demanding, because Umm Kulthum changes a lot. When you really break down this character, it’s not just one character, because the changes she goes through are huge. Mona gave it everything, gave it so much hard work, and I really think that the end result is going to have a powerful resonance.
There is a pan-Arabic element to the film, of course. But Umm Kulthum had fans all over the world. How is this depicted in the film?
In 1967, Umm Kulthum held her only performance in Europe at the Olympia Theatre in Paris. In the film we see her at the age of 70 performing in Paris in front of a massive crowd. It was a very heated political moment, after the 1967 [Arab-Israeli] war. And this tells you how influential she was. I always think about that moment: the war had taken place in June, and there she was in November, performing in Europe at a rather old age. This really tells you how influential and how powerful she was. And still is.
Below: a first look image of “El Set”
