Many things excite The departure of Zaki Fateen Abdel Wahab (1961 – 2022) Approaching it in different ways: The son of an artistic family (film director Fatin Abdel Wahab, singer Leila Mouradand Uncle Munir Murad, composer and singer). temporary spouse forSoad Hosni (6 months only, it is said, in his student youth). Obsessed with cinema. A desire to direct, a professional in acting, aspiring to a cinematic act that participates in the renewal of the image, and incites the imagination to create tools for work, examination and deconstruction. One shock following another, sometimes professionally, and recently healthily. Explicit in personal confessions regarding illness, treatment, dissatisfaction of male/female workers in the profession, and his inability to work, as the body is tired, andCorona Virus It is rampant, Egypt is changing for the worse, and the world is suffocated.
All this is a mixture of facts and confessions with some rehearsal to discover what is hidden in the pores of the confessor. His struggle with a cancerous disease is almost no different from his struggle for directing work. He wants a space for contemplation and closeness to the pulse of life, society, relationships and individuals. The challenges of the profession, coupled with cultural, artistic, intellectual and moral obligations, prevent him from continuing to direct, so he turns to acting, perhaps (Zaki Abdel-Wahhab) “subjects” to him to show some of his self, spirit, awareness and knowledge of aesthetics and sayings.
The sons and daughters of famous cinematographers and their daughters admit that the weight of parents’ stardom is unbearable. This does not apply to Zaki Abdel Wahab, as his choice of cinema as a profession, a life and a life, stems from a passion shown by roles and cinematic and television personalities, which he brilliantly leads with a thirst for declaring his passion, albeit through acting. He faces difficulties in directing, so he is satisfied with the movie “Romantica” (1996), and as an assistant director forYoussef Shaheen In “The Sixth Day” (1986), and perhaps Ali Badrakhan in “People of the Summit” (1981), for example. His involvement in an Egyptian cinematic stage, which reflects numerous attempts to create a cinematic preoccupation that differs from the previous one, finds (engagement) another extent in accompanying him in a later cinematic stage, represented by a generation looking, through the image, in the conditions of small environments, specific individuals and “modest” concerns, which are ( Conditions) openness to a broader horizon in politics, society, living and relationships, as well as in memory, historical joints and life vocabulary.
There are several reasons for his scarcity in directing, the most prominent of which is his mood
I tend to say a personal one, who sees in Zaki Abdel Wahab, and in a few others, the meaning of a duality that contradicts / one side collides with the other: a passion for cinema, and a difficulty, like a suspended impossibility, in a work that comes from the depths of the heart, soul and mind to worlds that surround the heart, soul and mind, in Times whose title lies in unclear but desirable changes, in ambiguous but beautiful illusions, in broken but sincere desires, and in a broken obsession with cinema, but it is beautiful and amiable. This is not negative, but rather an attempt to understand what it means for a filmmaker like Zaki Abdel Wahab to be unable to work (in directing in particular) as he sees him as life, in a country that has witnessed, at least since the “July 23 Revolution” (July 1952), a series of coups, deviations, difficulties, frustrations, disappointments, and hopes Also, to persistent individual attempts to get out of one reality, in search of it and in it, and for another reality and in it; Or to ask endless questions in films (and various works) that dismantle reality, the present, and history. Attempts to seek answers will not be final and final.
The scarcity of his directing work is due to several reasons, the most prominent of which is his mood, as Mona Ghandour (who works in the film industry, in Egypt in particular, for many years, writes, and has a series of episodes entitled “Shaheen Leh,” 2009), which quotes him as confessing to her (Facebook, March 20 / March 2022). she says that يُسري نصرالله He was able to take the best out of him as an actor, because they both worked “in a mood”. This calls for more reflection and reflection. Mood is key. But concern is also present, in the face of many questions, both in the self and in the public. Mood is a part of life, as are anxiety and insomnia. These are cases that incite work, but they sometimes prevent work due to the intensity of their presence in the self, spirit and mind. Resolving the issue is impossible, as it is linked to individuals who live contradictory emotions, and spend their lives searching for outlets and answers, perhaps getting some of them, but they leave before reaching many of them. Mood is a creative act, like restlessness and restlessness. lazy too.
This will not disregard other reasons, such as the difficulty of obtaining funding for projects that are unable to convince the productive authorities of it, due to the disagreement between the two parties regarding what these projects offer. This is achieved. The economic/industrial aspect of cinema is also essential, and sometimes prevents the desired from being achieved, according to the director/author’s “mood” and his anxiety and insomnia, for example.
From “Summer Robberies” (1988) by Yousry Nasrallah, with whom he will collaborate on “Mercedes” (1993) and “Al Madina” (2000), to “Baheb El Sima” (2004) by Osama Fawzy (and beyond), Zaki Abdel Wahab stars in Films, some of which tend to rethink the meaning of penetrating the cinematic tradition, to create a new style of asking questions, approaching issues, and trying to understand a situation, moment, environment, living or emotion, through the language of the seventh art. With Youssef Chahine, it can be said that it is a foundation for these attempts, and one of the few beginnings that aspire to make change a culture, living and awareness. Film and television works distract him, albeit a little, from his main obsession, but at the same time, they give him a space to publicize something subjective, he wants (advertisement) a mirror whose depth says that acting is a corner and an exercise, and that working as a craft and a profession, and that the subsequent (adjective) is required and direct , Despite everything.
All of this is an analysis that places personal readings on Zaki Abdel-Wahhab, perhaps he does not agree with them, or is not interested in them. I wouldn’t go into a drop like that. I write what I feel and what I see in that well-known biography. “Romantica”, his film as a director, delves into the bowels of a situation that circulates all over the world, using his Egyptian environment as a model, reflecting some local in examining moods, emotions, social behavior, and behavior. Basically, however, he says that experimentation is possible, and reality is rich enough to go through tests to dig into roots, feelings, and facts. His film is a reflection of something from his biography with cinema. Hassan (Mamdouh Abdel-Alim) wants to make a film regarding young people who accompany foreign tourists and provide them with paid services. But Hassan is unable to achieve what he desires, as he is involved in a cruel and complex world, full of questions and ambiguities.
His acting in Yousry Nasrallah’s films, for example, is evidence of ambition, which leads him to such an experiment in dismantling memory, the present, details, memories, self and revelation, even if he is satisfied with acting, perhaps something or more of his friend Yusri.
The absence of Zaki Fateen Abdel Wahab raises such questions. Presenting it now is an invitation to an open debate on the self and the public, as well as on the present and memory.
