Cinema
The Night of Counting the Years
المومياء
Shadi Abdel Salam · 1969
Synopsis
Upper Egypt, 1881. The chief of the Horabat tribe has just died, and his two sons learn what their people live on: a cache of royal sarcophagi, in the mountain of Thebes, which the tribe secretly plunders and whose objects it sells. The two brothers clash with the elders, and Wanis, the younger, is torn between loyalty to his own people and his conscience. At the same time, the antiquities service in Cairo, alerted by royal pieces that have appeared on the black market, sends a mission up the Nile.
Context
The story starts from a real event, the discovery, in 1881, of forty royal sarcophagi near Thebes. Produced by the Egyptian General Organisation for Cinema and released in 1969, the film has cinematography by Abdel Aziz Fahmi and music by Mario Nascimbene; the characters speak classical Arabic. Restored in 2009 in Bologna by Martin Scorsese's foundation with the Egyptian Ministry of Culture, it was shown the same year at Cannes Classics.
Who it is for
A feature film of about one hundred minutes, in classical Arabic with subtitles, at a slow pace, restored in 2009.
Prizes and reception
Third in the ranking of the hundred best Egyptian films, and regarded as one of the greatest films of the country.
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