Faten Hamama Honor in Alexandria film festival by Egyptian film critic Tarek Elshenawi

Why did the Egyptian Association for Film Writers and Critics come to choose
"Faten Hamama" as the Star of the Millennium for her cinematic acting
performance?

Why did the Board of Directors decide to honor her in the third Millennium
Festival held in Alexandria?

When Faten Hamama's name was announced, critics, artists and even the audiences
were gratified and satisfied for this selection.
Selecting Faten Hamama as the Star of the millennium does not mean ignoring
other talents that glowed, and still have their effective glories, (even the
dead absent ones).

William Shakespeare; selected as the best writer, not only for the 20th
century, but also, for the entire second millennium! This is not inequity to
the talents of Moulier, Thshicoff, Eisen, Bernardshow, Sawmill Picket, and
Destofiski. The list is long, and extends from the east and west since the
eleventh century up to the twentieth century. But, Shakespeare fulfilled the
writer's symbol. Having his name mentioned is enough to drive the memory to his
writing talents. The same when Beethoven is mentioned, memory is driven to the
fabulous foreign music, Mohamed Abd El Wahab, eastern music, Om Kalthoum,
singing, Mahmoud Said, art of drawing, Beerm El Tonsi lyric poetry or verse,
Naguib El Rihani, comedy, Youssef Wahby, tragedy.
The same applies to Faten Hamama establishments during the years of her acting
career in the Egyptian Cinema. She managed to become the symbol of this art.

Faten had opportunities, which were not available to others, and this is what
made her charisma exist and last through the generations. She is the young girl
in film debut "Youm Sa id" 1940, she was not even eight years old yet, until TV
series "Wagh El Quamar" which was broadcasted last Ramadan.

Faten grew up with people, the generation that witnessed her work when she was
young grew up with her, whilst the generations that did not witness her, had
complete archives of all her work during her acting career. It is the cinema
which engraves lineaments and sensation in the memories of people, which grows
up with them as they get older, this is exactly what happened with Faten
Hamama, certainly nobody asked her to plan this, nor had it occured in her
mind, but with time, these shots would sustain her journey with people.

But, this child is not anymore a child, people wanted her to grow cinematically
amongst them, there were others who had talents, which gloried since their
childhood, then soon their glow would fade away. We've got lots of examples,
Cherley Temple, the international symbol of the wonder child, Fairuz, the
Lebanese legend. It is as if people want to fix their image of childhood at
this certain age, like a doll which never grows up, while people would get
older. they did not want the doll to grow up with them, but they wanted it to
remind them of a certain stage of their childhood.

Although Faten Hamama the child grew up with people, yet, they allowed her to
continue her journey with them, with the same glamour. They lived and grew up
with her since her childhood, they followed her, Their admiration to her was
not transitional. As she was considered a member of each Arab family, by the
time she crossed the stage of childhood, Hassan El Emam introduced her in his
film debut "Malaeka Fi Gohanam" 1946 - she was just fifteen- and then "Al
Yatimatan" 1948.   She continued her journey with people, never stopping except
for compulsory reasons which did not exceed four years from 1966 up till 1970.

Faten Hamama, the dream of the director's generation of the late forties and
fifties up till the nineties, like, Hassan El Emam, Salah Abu Seif, Henry
Barakat, Kamal El Sheikh, Youssef Chahine, the directors of the Golden Age of
the Cinema, until the generation of the directors of the 80's and 90's like,
Dawood Abd El Sayed and Khairy Bishara.

Mohamed Karim was the one who first discovered Faten Hamama when she was young
, he gave her the screen debut in film "Yawm Said". The film garnered the
attention of director Hassan El Emam who invited her to make other successful
films in the stage of her adolescence, whilst, other directors dream was to
collaborate with Faten Hamama. It was not a coincidence that Youssef Chahine's
film debut "Baba Amin" 1950 was starred by Faten. She was his first choice.
The first film for Kamal El Sheikh, mounted up immediately the name "Faten
Hamama" in film "Al Manzel Raquam 13" (1952), and, when Salah Abu Seif changed
his artistic path and adopting realistic cinema, he found his dream cinema
visualized in Faten's outstanding performance in film "Lak Youm Ya Zalem" 1951.

Faten's union with Ez El Din Zulfikar:   Ez El Din Zulfikar the renowned
director managed to make brilliant use of Faten's signature combination of
elegant charm and smoldering sensuality in films of varying artistic merit,
films that made the golden history of the Egyptian Cinema. He managed to
establish a history with her. The start of Ez El Din, after only one year as a
director, was in film "Khouloud" in the year 1948.

The meeting of Ez and Faten was so special, it was a meeting which acknowledged
only the success, as in films "Mawed Maa El Haya" 1953, "Mawed Maa Al Saada"
1954, "Bein Al Atlal" 1959, "Nahr Al Hob" 1960. This was an artistically
meeting, or an artistic conjunction. Their work together was not affected by
their divorce or personal separation in the mid fifties. films "Bein Al Atlal"
and "Nahr Al Hob", the triumphant success of their collaboration came after
their divorce. This big artistic conjunction, despite the fact of absence of
personal harmony, made Ez El Din say "I was never the husband suitable for
Faten Hamama, we had no harmony in our nature nor moods", whilst, on cinematic
grounds, Ez found that Faten the highest ranked actress in the fifties
genation that he said 'The difference between Faten and whoever comes after her
rank of actresses is like the difference between one to ten!'
But, time, did not give Ez much, he died in the beginning of the sixties before
continuing his journey with Faten Hamama, he had plans for her, he wanted them
to make film " El Kheit El Rafeigh", which was later directed by Henry Barakat
in the seventies!

Faten Hamama, is the highest waged actress amongst her generation, and the most
granting to the requirements of the box office, despite the fact, she was
never captivated by revenues of the box office, she had been always looking for
something beyond the revenues of the box office.

She was adventurous in choosing the dramatic roles she played.   She made a
duet song with Chadia in film "Mawed Maa Al Haya", the song "Alo, Alo Ehna
Hena".   She played the unfaithful wife in film "Nahr Al Hob" despite the fact
that there is a mental picture which controls the actors and does not allow him
to make any deviation.   This mental picture imposes special features on the
dramatic character, the audiences sometimes do not want to separates dramatic
character from the real character. They would not simply accept to see Faten
who illustrated the values of sacrifice and sincerity in the films playing the
role of an unfaithful wife. The script of film "Nahr Al Hob" was keen not to
include direct love scenes between the two lovers. Although Faten Hamama and
Omar El Sherif traveled together to Beirut, each stayed in a separate room. In
the dramatic structure the script carefully build up gradual hatred to Zaki
Rostom –who played the role of the betrayed husband-.   The people want their
superstar to be ideal forever, no matter if they deprive her from her right to
make mistakes. But, Faten's credibility, and Ez's sensitivity as a director,
made them pass this impasse.

Conclusion: this trio relation is worth careful and close examination, Omar El
Sherif, the husband, Faten Hamama the wife, Ez El Din Zulfikar, the ex husband
and director, and all these emotional scenes in the film, unbelievable!

Faten Hamama did not restrict herself to one generation of directors but she
worked with all generations. Her first film debut was with the pioneer of the
Egyptian Cinema Mohamed Karim, she then continued her journey with Ahmed Kamel
Moursi, Henry Barakat, and Hassan El Emam, they all made an important stage in
her career. She then collaborated with Hussein Kamal in film "Embratoreyet
Mim" in 1972, followed by Said Marzouk in film "Oreed Halan" in the year 1977,
then "Youm Mor Youm Helw" in 1988 directed by Khairy Bishara. The last film
she made was "Ard El Ahlam" in 1993 directed by Dawood Abd El Sayed.

Faten Hamama knew that the star has to be remodeled/refreshed through the
vision of different directors who may discover something new in her, something
different. Barakat is the director she worked with for long during the entire
stages of her acting career, but, this was not enough to guarantee the flow of
the artistic river which has to get its source of water from all sources, and
not one. Om Kalthoum, for example, she kept sincere to Ryad El Sonbati's music
and his classical tunes, despite of that during the fifties she worked with
other following generation of composers, like, Mohamed El Mougi, Baligh Hamdi,
Kamal El Tawil, Sayed Mekawi, this is what gave Om Kalthoum the renewing. I
think Faten's steadfastness/perseverance all this years as the superstar on top
of internal and worldwide distribution is the biggest proof of her artistic
value. Faten Hamama has had her materialistic returns through Producing and
distributing companies, as with each cinematic undulation would extirpate all
what is prevailing, and establishes new values and laws, but Faten is the
exception, she kept her values, Faten in film "Ard El Ahlam" 1993, is the same
Faten the audiences first saw in Film "Al Yatimatan" in 1948. She never gave up
for the sake of stability, and never gave up starring; she always kept the
glamour of her name.

When the society of the cinema chose Faten Hamama for the title of "The Lady of
the Arab Screen", when the society of music chose Om Kalthoum to carry the
title of "The Lady of the Arab Singing, the society of theatre chose Youssef
Wahbi to carry the title of "the Master of the Arab Theatre", society of arts
chose Taha Hussein to carry the title of "The Master of the Arabic
Literature".. Does this carry any meaning? Those talented in their positions
have exceeded the geographical and national boundaries that they were able to
influence all the Arab nations, does this mean that history gave those titles
their significance?

From here comes the honoring of Alexandria Festival to Faten Hamama as an icon
who influenced, brought fourth, and became truly and actually the Star of this
century.