Salah Abu Seif
Salah Abu Seif was a prominent Egyptian film director and screenwriter. He is considered to be the godfather of Neorealist cinema in Egyptian cinema.
Many of the 41 films he directed are considered Egyptian classics; eight of them rank in the Bibliotheca Alexandrina’s list of 100 Greatest Egyptian Films, the most of any director. Another 1997 Top 100 ranking by Egyptian film critics lists eleven of Abu Seif's films, right behind Youssef Chahine with twelve films.
His film The Beginning and the End was the first adaptation of a novel by Nobel Prize winner Naguib Mahfouz. In 1977 he was a member of the jury at the 10th Moscow International Film Festival.
Early life
Abu-Seif was born in 1915, in Cairo's ancient quarter of Boolaq, to landowning parents from Upper Egypt. He was 12 years old when he saw the first full- length feature film made by an Egyptian, in 1927, at a local movie-house - earlier films were imports accompanied by Egyptian narrations, or made by Europeans living in Egypt. As the son of a conservative family, Abu-Seif graduated from the Cairo College of Commerce and Economics in 1932, while at the same time working as a freelance reporter following movie stars. But it was at his day job as a clerk in a factory that he met the Egyptian film-maker Niazy Mustapha, who was on a shoot there. Mustapha made him a film editor.In 1939, Abu-Seif won a scholarship to study film in Paris. Within five years of his return in 1942, he had established himself as one of the most avant-garde second generation film-makers in the country. He pioneered shooting on location - though he also used reconstructions - in places none of his predecessors had dared to visit, like ghurza, brothels and impoverished areas whose existence had never been officially acknowledged.
Career
Abu Seif began his career as a film editor in films such as Aydah, before making his feature directorial debut with the film Always in my Heart.Many of his films had political implications. The Case '68 and Malatily Bathhouse were influenced by the Six-Day War. Both films dealt with the changing social climate of post-war Egypt. They experienced troubled production and release history, including protests against their release by the Arab Socialist Union.
Style
His style was initially influenced by the works of Egyptian director Kamal Selim.Abu Seif first encountered neorealism on a trip to Rome, and adopted techniques used by Italian filmmakers, such as dubbing over dialogue to ensure the quality of the audio. He employed several distinct techniques in his films, such as the use of popular music, realistic characters and storylines, and location shooting. When locations were not available to him for filming, he reconstructed sets with great detail to render them as accurate as possible to their real world counterparts.
Abu Seif’s preference for realistic stories and settings allowed him to form a close relationship with his audience, who would have seen themselves represented in his films. He was described as “the artist of the Egyptian people” due to the reflective and observational nature of his work.