Dawoud Abdel Sayed: In the Presence of Greatness

CAIRO – 26 September 2017: Can anyone truly write about greatness? Greatness is a value, an adjective, and so much more. Seldom does one cross paths with a person who embodies greatness in all that it means.

Dawoud Abdel Sayed, a director, writer, scriptwriter, and visionary, has illustrated throughout the years his capacity for greatness through is humble, soft-spoken, and familiar attitude. When talking about his work, Sayed’s flaming passion is instantly felt, allowing one to understand the artist’s mind and respect his many talents.

Spanning his 30-year career, Sayed only participated in the creation of 9 movies. When asked about why he created so few films, denying the world of more of his genius work, Sayed simply states, “They are not nine jobs… they are actually seventeen.” He elaborates that he did not just write the story, script, or direct each one of those movies, sometimes he did more than one of those activities, meaning he participated more than once in the creation of the movie on which he is working.

“I do not believe that a director discovers talent, or teach[es] actors how to perform or enhance their genius… the way I deal with actors is to give them space to show their ability, the rest is on them to take the role to new high,” stated Sayed. In spite of this statement, the stars who worked with him performed their best under his guidance.

Actors like Ahmed Zaki in Land of Fear, performing as Adam leaving heaven,
symbolizing the power of a police officer, and landing on earth, symbolizing the land of fear where he is an undercover drug dealer, in the memorable role of Yehia Abou Daboora, was one of the best roles that Zaki played, as he was able to convey the depth of the character exceptionally. Likewise, Aly Hassanein in The Search for Sayed Marzook was able to represent the ambiguous missing person’s role with great depth.

Another example is Lucy, the famous dancer, who was able to transform her talent from the dance floor to the theatres and movies, even singing in the infamous movie Sareq El-Farah or The Joy’s Thief. Sayed’s success stems from his calmness in the studio coupled with his detailed scripts, which often include suggestions on how specific phrases should be said on camera, allowing him to command his orchestra in a symphony able to produce his masterpieces.

Out of the nine movies he created, three were included in the chart of top one hundred movies in the Egyptian cinema. The most famous of them all is El-Kit Kat, which he won six awards for in Arab and European festivals, and was widely acknowledged by artists and as a remarkable work of art.

The story of El-Kit Kat, which originally appeared in Ibrahim Aslan’s novel Malek El-Hazeen, is an amazing mosaic bringing people from the poor area of Imbaba together, and explaining their background before delving into their suffering and struggles.

The story ends with a revolution in January 18-19, 1977. In attempting to avoid the political events of the novel during the writing of the script, Sayed emerged the blind character, Hosni, as the main person. Hosni is a middle-aged, blind man who lives in denial of his condition, often claiming that he can see better than those who have not lost their sight.

Quirky moments where denial turns to laughter are plenty, including a scene where Hosni drives a motorcycle and hits a fruit cart and chicken crates, and others where he escapes the police. For Sayed, “This is a movie about incapacity.” All characters desire goals that they do not, and cannot, achieve, and are oppressed by their needs, poverty, and inability to reach a decent class in their everyday life.

The incapacity to reach goals is hard to grasp by the audience due to the vast similarities between the novel and their lives. The star, Mahmoud Abdel-Aziz, personifies the character of the blind man with remarkable aptitude.

Sayed’s philosophy is shown in that character, particularly through his wise balance between the space he gave Abdel-Aziz to express himself and built his character and his detailed scriptwriting. This combination resulted in an artistic masterpiece, which starred a funny blind man that will never be forgotten from the cinema’s memory.

The writer/director combination that Sayed portrays is rare but played a fundamental role is his success. His writing career started as a result of him not finding novels of interest for him to direct, leading him to write scripts. “I believe that the solid connection between the writer and the director is the cornerstone for success, so I prefer to combine them in one,” Sayed states.

Sayed’s movies always push the community’s boundaries on taboos, such as sex and religion. “I do not consider sex a Taboo, it is part of our daily life and I deal with it in my movies as such. The Egyptian middle class is conservative and prefers not to deal with this vital issue,” Sayed elaborates.

None of his films were rejected or attacked for dealing with sex, suggesting that he knows how to address the aforementioned issued in a manner that allows them to be accepted by the audience. The second sensitive subject, religion, has also been discussed and exposed in many of Sayed’s works.

In his colorful movie Mowaten W Mokhber W Harami, which translated to A citizen, an Informant and a Thief, Sayed exposed the popular culture that considers a naked statue a taboo, or a novel that has no prayer deserves to be burned; in short, he exposed the Salafist culture that became part of society.

“I caught that by just living and interacting with people”, Sayed explained, illustrating that the cultural elite took notice of the change that occurred in the Egyptian mentality after it was discussed in that movie. Dawoud Abdel Sayed is living proof that an artist is the product of the society within which he or she lives.