Cairo is to Arabic cinema what Hollywood is to American cinema.
In the minds of most Arabs, Egyptian cinema is a reference point, many of its actors and actresses are divas with a global following and some film scenes are immortal.
During the course of 10 years, from 1985 to 1996, prominent photographer Fouad ElKoury entered this cinema industry, taking photographs of over 17 film sets (such as "The Destiny" by Youssef Chahine), major actors (Omar Sharif, Mahmoud Abdel Aziz, Ahmed Zaki, ...) actresses (Faten Hamama, Taheyya Kariokka, Yousra, Soad Hosni, Sherihan, ...) , film makers (Youssef Chahine, Hussein Kamal, Mohamed Khan, ...), studios.
Selected from the artists' archive, most of the photographs in this book have never been published before, while others have reached worldwide fame, such as Sherihan's photograph in a theater.
Edited by: Manal Khader, Fouad ElKoury and Nour Salamé.
Fouad Elkoury
After qualifying as an architect in London, in 1979, Elkoury turned to photography, producing a report on daily life in Lebanon. His images appeared in Libération and other publications. In 1984, he published Beyrouth Aller–Retour, documenting the life of a war-torn city. In 1991 he and other photographers were commissioned to take part in a project in downtown Beirut, to document the aftermath of war. This was later published in an album entitled Beirut City Centre, by Editions du Cyprès, Paris, and was the subject of an exhibition at the Palais de Tokyo, Paris, in 1993. The book has since become a milestone in the history of photography. In 1997, Elkoury co-founded the Beirut-based Arab Image Foundation, an organization that seeks to archive and preserve photography from the region. The following year he moved to Turkey and produced an extensive photographic travelogue, the last of his exclusively photographic series. In 2002, the Maison Européenne de la Photographie in Paris commissioned him to create an exhibition for which he presented a new collection of photographic compositions, incorporating sequential images to emphasize meaning. As part of the exhibition he premiered his first video Lettres à Francine, based on his photographs of Turkey. The exhibition catalog, Sombres, is published by Marval. Since then, he has alternated between photography and video, as well as writing, with his first text, La Sagesse du Photographe, published in Paris in 2004.
Manal Khader
Manal Khader is a writer, editor and actress based in Beirut. She is one of the founders of Kalamon – a Beirut based cultural quarterly review – and co-editor of the publication from 2010 to 2015. Manal plays leading and supporting roles in Arab and international films and in 2015, she co-wrote and performed with Rabih Mroué a theatrical play entitled "Ode to Joy”.