At a symposium on the African Cinema Festival in Luxor, actress Laila Elwi declared that President Sisi should involve himself in the piracy issue when it comes to Egyptian cinema.
Elwi was one of several attendees at the symposium discussing Egyptian cinema, which included director Khaled Youssef and the head of Burkina Faso’s FESPACO film festival and guest of honor, Adiouma Soma.
The actress said the most important problem facing Egyptian cinema today is piracy, pointing to satellite channels on NourSat that broadcast films without a license.
“I call on President Sisi to intervene personally and resolve this problem,” Elwi said, also demanding that the Cinema Industry Chamber registers films so as to protect the copyrights.
Elwi also denied the accusation that Egyptian cinema is ignoring subjects relating to Upper Egypt. “Many films were produced about Upper Egypt,” she said. “But the industry as a whole has suffered in the past few years.”
Director Youssef said President Sisi has tasked National Security Advisor Fayza Abul Naga with following up on the issues within the Egyptian cinema industry. “This is the first time since President Nasser that a president cares about cinema,” he said.
Youssef believes that censorship should only classify films for viewers and not cut from them. “There should be no censorship of creativity or custody for a person above 21 years,” he said, adding that there is a committee of seven ministers who following up on the censorship issue.
The director added that cinema and culture should have been discussed in the economic conference, but those topics were discarded at the last minute and replaced by more pressing youth issues.
For his part, Soma said Egypt has begun to move more closely toward other African countries, pointing out that at first relations were only on paper, but now there is cooperation between the Luxor and the FESPACO film festivals.
Edited translation from Al-Masry Al-Youm
