Abdel-Sayed was born in 1946, he began his career as an assistant director for Kamal El-Sheikh in the film Al-Ragoul Allathy Faqda Thilloh (The Man Who Lost his Shadow)1968 and for Youssef Chahine in the film Al-Ard (The Land) as well as in the film Awham Al-Hob (Illusions of Love) directed by Mamdouh Shokri in 1969, then he embarked in his career as a director of documentary films such as Wasyet Ragoul Hakim Fi Sho’oun Al-Qariah wal-Ta›liem (Wise Man,s will in village and education affairs) in 1976, Al-‘amal fil Haql (Working in the field) in 1979 as well as the film Aan Al- Nas wal-Anbia, wal-Fananien(About People, Prophets and Artists) in 1980.
In 1985 Abdel-Sayed began his career as a feature filmmaker with the film Al-Sa’aliq (The Vagabonds). Seemingly, Abdel-Sayed chooses to march in an intricate path, he aims to merge what is deeply rooted in the Egyptian mentality such as religious mythology with the reality of the Egyptian society and its contemporary daily life difficulties. However, doubts of fate predominate this vision of Abdel-Sayed which was clear in his film Ard Al-Khouf (Land of Fear) the film which won the Silver Pyramid Award in Cairo International Film Festival in 1999. Where the film’s hero loses faith in his existence as a police officer in a secret mission inside drug business world, Abdel-Sayed protagonist breaks the barriers into ample measures of complicated queries.
The severity of those doubts and issues became clearer in 2010 in his latest film Rasa’el Al-Bahr (Messages from the Sea), when the hero’s life became attached to an unknown language message coming out from the sea, nevertheless, Abdel-Sayed offered to the viewer the life of this character with its basic and simple needs where the character of the film interpret the meaning of love, fishing for food and preserving the beauty of Alexandria, remotely distancing the idea that this message might be affecting the life of the character, it only completes the queries of Abdel-Sayed’s drama.
Filmography
• The Vagabonds 1985
• The Search of Sayed Marzuq 1990
• Kit Kat 1991
• Land of Dreams 1993
• The Wedding Thief 1994
• Land of Fear 1999
• A citizen and a detective and a thief 2001
• Messages from the Sea 2010
