The Italian film, Complete Strangers, was released in 2016, and was a critical and commercial success, winning the “David di Donatello” award in the Best Film category and grossing over 16 million euros in Italy, in addition to huge popularity around the world; To achieve a record number of copies that were presented around the world, with a total of 18 copies.
The movie “Friends and My Dearest”, starring Mona Zaki, Iyad Nassar and Nadine Labaki, in addition to George Khabbaz, Adel Karam, Fouad Yammine and Diaman Abu Aboud, directed by Wissam Samira, and scheduled for release on January 20.
The events of the film revolve around a group of 7 friends who meet for dinner and decide to play a game where everyone puts their cell phones on the dinner table, provided that all new messages or calls are in full view of everyone.
And soon the game, which was initially fun and interesting, turns into a barrage of scandals and secrets, which no one knew about, including the best friends.
Since “Netflix” announced its new movie, the Italian movie (Complete Strangers) has been on the list of the most searched on “Google” in Egypt, and social networking sites have been buzzing with many publications and tweets, during which the “Social Media” audience reveals their expectations about “friends and dearest”.
The audience’s opinions were divided between optimism and fear. One sector of the audience believes that the story of the Italian film guarantees the Arab audience to see a strong movie, while the other sector fears that it will not be “friends and dear ones” as much as expectations.
artistic challenge
For his part, the art critic, Amr Al-Kashef, says that the success of the Italian film is a double-edged sword for the experience of “Ashab wa La Aziz”; Because it increases the audience’s anticipation of the Arab film, but at the same time it raises the level of expectations, and this puts pressure on the work makers.
Al-Kashef added to “Sky News Arabia”: “Automatically, the audience will make a comparison between the Arabic version and its original counterpart, so the work must be able to confront these comparisons, and not be just a transfer of the story to the Italian film.”
And he continues, “We hope that the story (Friends and My Dearest) will have the same path as the story (Complete Strangers), but with details that come close to the crises of Arab societies, because it contains the main audience for the expected movie.”
The art critic praises the “combination” of the film’s team, saying: “We hope that there will be many experiences that bring together the artists of the Arab world, this will help the development of the Arab film and drama industry, so that we can gradually start competing with international cinema.”
Al-Kashef concludes his interview with Sky News Arabia: “We hope that the work will live up to expectations, especially since the team (friends and dear ones) heralds a distinguished movie.”
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