Director
Egypt
1926 - 2013
Tawfik Saleh is one of the Egyptian promemnent filmmakers, After graduating from Victoria College in Alexandria, he earned a BA in English Literature from Alexandria University in 1949. He eventually moved to Cairo to study directing but there was no academic institute that taught cinema. That is why he helped in founding the Cinema Institute later. He went to France in 1950 on a scholarship to study the art of cinema. He also worked as an assistant director in three French films. He wrote in collaboration with Naguib Mahfouz his film debut Fools' Alley and directed it in 1955. It took Saleh another seven years to direct The Struggle of Heroes in 1962 set during the cholera epidemic of the 1930s. He also directed several important films such as: The Rebels, El Sayed el Bolti, Diary of a Country Prosecutor, and The Dupes which is one of the first Arab films to address the Palestinian predicament. The film received critical acclaim and collected many awards, among which are the Golden Tanit at Carthage Film Festival in 1972, the First Prize from Strasbourg Festival in 1973 and Lenin's Peace Award from Moscow Festival in 1973.
