.jpg "Beast of the Silver Screen (The Epic of Egyptian Cinema)")
The book deals with Farid Shawky’s journey to stardom, and the difficulties and obstacles he faced, playing marginal and secondary roles till he dominated main roles all the way to sole stardom. It is also exploring how he succeeded in overcoming the traditional features of a star, cleverly challenging the rules of the market and the box office. The book attempts to understand how he maintained his name at all those years till the end? The book explores the various stages in the life of the king, from theatre to cinema, from the various villain roles, to social drama, comedy, and the secret of his transition to melodrama and older-aged characters. It also tries to understand how he viewed himself and his evaluation of his own work, and how he escaped the traps of stereotypes. It explores the roles of his father, women, and teachers in his career, without neglecting the social, political and artistic conditions that Egypt experienced during those years. The book also seeks to read the most important features of the Egyptian cinema and the reality surrounding it and the impact of political developments on it and the course of our hero himself, through a reading of the legend of the King of Terso, Farid Shawky.
Amal El Gamal
Egypt
Amal El Gamal is an author and a film critic. She holds a PhD in film criticism. She wrote a number of scripts for documentaries for the European Broadcasting Union, in cooperation with the Egyptian Television, on animals risking extinction. She wrote an adaptation for TV of Youssef Idris’ Above the Limits of Reason. She won the Abdel Hai Adib Award from the Alexandria Festival in 2009 for the The Net, an adaptation of a novel by Sharif Hatata. She participated in many Egyptian, Arab and international juries, including Cairo, El Gouna, Ismailia, Kuwait, Malmö, and the Sea of Arab Film in Messina, South Italy. In her film analysis, the author relies on comparative criticism and the semiotics approach. She has published ten books on film criticism, including: “Through the Eyes of a Woman”, “Joint Arab Cinema .. Filmography”, “Joint Production in Egyptian Cinema”, “The Killers between Hemingway and Tarkovsky” - “Nawal El Saadawi and Sharif Hatata: A Life Experience”, "Cinematic Language in Literature: A Comparative Study between Tarkovsky and Sharif Hatata", "Egyptian Films in Major International Festivals", "Samir Farid: Film Critic Model and Example", "Cross-Genre Cinema: The Limits of Characterization and Classification", and "Farid Shawky, the Mighty and Just Strongman: A Song for Egyptian Cinema”.
