SPOTLIGHT ON ARTS & CULTURE
Cinematic Lust As told to Sydnee Bryant
Last month, filmmaker Khaled El Hagar took part in the Doha Tribeca Film Festival for the first time, with his film El Shooq/Lust. El Hagar reveals how he got his start as a director and the message behind his latest film. The Film Khaled El Hagar’s film El Shooq/ Lust brings viewers into the lives of the inhabitants of a marginalized street in Alexandria, the second largest city in Egypt. Familiar, moving and funny, each character is isolated in his or her fierce, yet fragile dreams. The central character is Umm Shooq, a woman whose sense of shame and inadequacy drives her to gain leverage over the little world in which she lives. Her personal story feeds the unfulfilled longings and repressed desires of her family and neighbours, while driving the oppression that grips them all. El Shooq/Lust very clearly shows how the poor people of Egypt lived before the revolution; many critics said that the film predicted the revolution. El Shooq/Lust was number one at the Egyptian box office for the two weeks prior to the beginning of the revolution.
From an early age, El Hagar has wanted to make movies. “I was just born with the love of making films,” El Hagar said. After earning a law degree, he worked as an assistant director to the renowned director Youssef Chahine. That experience inspired him to do a post-graduate degree in film directing at the National Film and Television School in England. Afterwards, he worked as a director in Egypt, Germany, France and England. His work includes his film Room to Rent Rent, the first British film to be written and directed by an Egyptian filmmaker in the U.K. The film went on to win eight international awards and was shown in theatres in the U.K., Europe, the U.S. and Canada in 2001.
Next up for the director is not one but two feature films. El Hagar is currently in preAt the Cairo International Film Festival in 2010, production for the film Tomorrow Is For Us. the film won the best international film award He’ll also be working on another film soon, called A Very Hot Summer Summer. (The Golden Pyramid) and the best actress award for Sawsan Badr. The film is also in the El Hagar’s films have been shown in more Egyptian entry for the 2012 Oscars. than 150 international film festivals, including Cannes, New York and Montreal. The film was shot in Cairo and Alexandria. This is the director’s first time taking part The main message of the film is a simple but in the Doha Tribeca Film Festival (DTFF), powerful one: that greed and the misuse of something he is very happy about. “It’s a power can kill whoever is running after those great feeling and a great honour and I hope things, in addition to destroying dreams. people liked [the film],” El Hagar said.
The Director Khaled El Hagar, born in Cairo, Egypt, is now based both in Cairo and England. El Hagar has been directing movies since 1989, when he did his first feature film Little Dreams. El Shooq/Lust is his sixth feature film. The wellrounded auteur has also made four short films and a television drama. 34
The festival, which just finished its third season, is significant for Qatar for several reasons, said El Hagar. “The festival is an important culture venue for people to know other cultures,” El Hagar said. “The festival does promote the country and help tourism and give a chance to people in Qatar to see films from other Arab countries.”
Khaled El Hagar
El shooq/Lust