The opening film of the 14th Boğaziçi Film Festival, organised by the Boğaziçi Culture and Art Foundation from 8 to 15 November, has been announced: Egyptian director Marwan Hamed’s “El Sett: Umm Kulthum”, screening in Türkiye as “Diva: Ümmü Gülsüm”.
Having premiered at the 22nd Marrakech International Film Festival, the film traces Umm Kulthum’s journey from a poor rural childhood to becoming one of the most powerful voices of the Arab world. Mona Zaki plays the lead, with Sayed Ragab, Ahmed Khaled Saleh, Mohamed Farag, Karim AbdelAziz and Ahmed Helmy also in the cast.
The roughly 160-minute biopic opens backstage at the Paris Olympia, as the 69-year-old singer prepares to perform for a war-torn Arab world. It follows an artist who began singing disguised as a boy at a time when women on stage were frowned upon, and who rose to become Cairo’s most powerful voice despite social barriers, class divisions and personal loss.
The festival is held with the support of the Directorate General of Cinema of the Turkish Ministry of Culture and Tourism.
