On January 20, the movie “Friends and Dearest” was shown on the platform of the producing company, “Netflix”, and since then it has angered some of those who watched it, because it was based on an Italian story without taking into account the differences between societies, and because it contains a role for a gay.
On the other hand, others, including artists, defended it, considering that the attack harms freedom of expression, or that it does not deserve to be attacked because it does not include bold scenes.
The history of cinema in Egypt in the past 40 years has known similar crises due to the emergence of “homosexuality” and other bold scenes in works, including the movie “Hammam El Malatili” in 1973 directed by Salah Abu Seif, and the artist Youssef Shaaban embodied the character of “a gay man,” and the censorship decided to show it In the cinema, after deleting several scenes, he is still prohibited from showing on television.
The works of the writer Naguib Mahfouz did not escape criticism. In 1975, the movie “The Sinners”, directed by Saeed Marzouk, was shown. The late President Mohamed Anwar El-Sadat requested that 15 censorship officials be referred to trial for agreeing to show the film, and considered it detrimental to Egypt’s reputation and its image before the world.
In 2000, the movie “The Pleasure Market” by writer Wahid Hamed and director Samir Seif was greatly rejected, because of what parliamentarians considered incitement to immorality in scenes presented by artist Ilham Shaheen, but then Minister of Culture Farouk Hosni ignored the ban request.
The screening of the movie “The Yacoubian Building” in 2006 by director Marwan Hamed, which was based on Alaa Al-Aswany’s novel, sparked a great deal of controversy, after the artist Khaled Al-Sawy embodied the character of a “gay” journalist, but he received support from some filmmakers and critics.
In 2013, director Hani Fawzy presented the first Egyptian artwork starring a young “gay” man, the movie “Family Secrets”, because of which he fought a struggle with the censorship, which requested the deletion of 13 scenes, and it was approved after deleting only two scenes, and it was shown amid a wide wave of attack.
Constitution rule
A year later, the parliament and the courtroom of the Administrative Court were preoccupied with a crisis related to the movie “Halwat Rouh”, which Prime Minister Ibrahim Mahlab suspended its showing based on a report from the Supreme Council for Motherhood and Childhood, in which he considered child abuse, and the judiciary canceled the decision, but in 2019 the Supreme Constitutional Court ruled By endorsing the government’s decision to prevent its presentation for deviating from the values of society that are protected by the constitution.
At the end of 2021, Ilham Shaheen announced her desire to present the play “The Virtuous Prostitute” by John Paul Sartre. Parliamentarian Ayman Mohsab confronted this, saying that “the play is not suitable for Egyptian society”, and its implementation was stopped.
The movie “Ashab wa Wal Aziz” is the first Arab cinema production for Netflix, and it is based on the Italian movie “Perfect Stranger”.
And its events tell about 7 friends playing a game, in which they put their phones on a table, and new messages and calls are exposed, and suddenly secrets appear, including that one of them is gay.
The film stars Mona Zaki, Iyad Nassar, Adel Karam, Nadine Labaki, Diamond Abboud, George Khabbaz, the script by Mohamed Hefzy, and directed by Wissam Samira.
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