In Search of Oil and Sand - a royal mystery (AFD 2013)
The discovery of an extraordinary old movie film roll sheds new light on the Egyptian monarchy. Mahmoud Sabit, a relative of the royal family, is a fascinating storyteller whom we are extremely happy to have as our guest in this year's festival.
In Search of Oil and Sand is an original documentary that takes us back to the strange circumstances surrounding the fall of the Egyptian monarchy at the beginning of the 1950s.
Mahmoud Sabit is a historian as well as a relative of the royal family; we meet him after he has discovered a film roll with a somewhat strange content. Sabit is one of the guests during the Arabian Filmdays, and will be present for a short conversation with the audience after both screenings. The film roll Sabit has found turns out to be a movie the Egyptian royal family filmed just months before they were thrown from power. What is ironic is that the movie us a about a fictitious monarchy that are forced to abdicate. In other words, they filmed their own demise shortly before it actually took place. We follow Sabit as he visits the few remaining members of the royal family that are still alive. The question they are soon discussing is: what would have happened if the monarchy had survived?
Directors Wael Omar and Philippe Dib have made an engaging documentary with great relevance for Egypt today. Was the Egyptian monarchy really that bad? How would Egypt have turned out today if the monarchy had been allowed to remain? Would Egypt have needed a revolution? These are just a few of the questions they ask during the movie. Mahmoud Sabit believes that Egypt could have become a well functioning democracy if the royal family had remained in power. He lives in the heart of Cairo right next to the now infamous Tahrir, and is a mesmerizing storyteller with many stories to tell and a lot of knowledge. It will be extremely interesting to hear his view on post-Mubarak Egypt after the screenings.
In Search of Oil and Sand screens on Saturday April 20th at 18.00 and Sunday April 21st at 17.15 with Mahmoud Sabit present after the screenings.