Cinema
Last Night
الليلة الأخيرة
Kamal El Sheikh · 1963
Synopsis
Alexandria, 1942. Nadia lives with her father and is about to be married; her sister Fawzia married Chaker against the wishes of her family. A German bombing raid strikes the city during the fitting of the wedding dress. Nadia wakes up fifteen years later in her sister's bed: everyone calls her Fawzia, Chaker treats her as his wife, and Fawzia's daughter takes her for her mother. She insists that she is Nadia and, with the help of a doctor friend, Magdi, tries to find out what became of those years.
Context
The film was released in Egypt on 23 December 1963, according to elCinema. Youssef el-Sebai wrote the screenplay, with Sabri Ezzat on dialogue, based on an American novel by Margaret Lynn according to Mada Masr and the Turin festival; Abdel Halim Nasr was cinematographer and Nasri Abdel Nour composed the music. Faten Hamama plays Nadia, Mahmoud Morsi plays Chaker and Ahmed Mazhar the doctor. According to Turin, the director drew the bombing scene from the raids he had lived through.
Who it is for
A black and white feature film, a little over an hour and three quarters long, in Arabic, built as a mystery narrative.
Prizes and reception
Selected for competition at the Cannes Film Festival in 1964, it is one of the titles that earned its director his reputation.
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