Wednesday, November 11, 2009

False Projects

By Maged Hebtah
Translated by Abdelazim R. Abdelazim
09/08/2004

In the lobby of the New Cairo Hotel, with the blaring volume of the classical “background” music making me increasingly uneasy about the clarity of my sound recording, I discuss the failed projects falsely attributed to him, with the director-producer Mustapha Al-Akkad. The public reads about such projects in newspapers, probes for their authenticity, and finds out that the news is false and merely brought into the world to polish the image of some other failed director. Al-Akkad comments that he rejoices in such news, as it shows that those slanderers greatly appreciate his name and standing.

Al-Akkad tells me that dozens of actresses, some of whose names he has never even heard, approach him at festivals and conferences and request to be photographed with him. After a day or two, he comes across the photos published in a newspaper or magazine with a caption that Al-Akkad had chosen this-or-that actress to play the heroine role next to this-or-that superstar actor in a new blockbuster!

Are people hauling with the name of Al-Akkad?

“Neither hauling or anything like that,” he replies laughingly, “It is a simple matter; as long as they don’t mention my name in a disgraceful context, I’m delighted.”

The Hebron Operation

I mention the movie The Hebron Operation to him, which, it turns out, he has never heard about. I tell him that Reuters News Agency published a headline in September 2002 claiming that Al-Akkad would direct a film about Israel’s interference in the selection of the American president. The body of the news maintained that the internationally renowned producer, Mustapha Al-Akkad, had agreed to the proposal of the Egyptian Company for Cinematic Production and Distribution to produce a movie based on the novel The Hebron Operation, written by a former CIA agent. The source of this news, according to Reuters, was Dr. Salah Hasabulnabi, CEO of the Egyptian Company for Cinematic Production and Distribution, who had reported that the film would carry the same title as the novel.

This news was then published by many Arab papers, some of which added that the project was initiated after the decision of the company to postpone the international Egyptian movie project on the Arab civilization of Andalusia because of its very high production costs.

Among other things, Salah Hasabulnabi announced that he had been in contact with the celebrated director Mustapha Al-Akkad about producing The Hebron Operation for an international audience.

The Hebron Operation is a novel written by Eric Jordan, a former CIA officer who worked in the Middle East . It centers on the influence of the Israeli Intelligence Agency, the Mossad, in selecting the US presidents and its practice of attributing their political assassinations to the Arabs.

Al-Akkad is very surprised. “I don’t recall anyone ever putting such a proposal to me.”

The Vicar Kabuchi

After the embarrassing history of The Hebron Operation, I hesitate for a moment to bring up The Vicar Kabuchi. This time, however, the director turns out to be acquainted with the project, though this history also ended before the project was begun.

Al-Akkad told me that Mamdouh Al-Lithy, head of the Cinema Department of the Egyptian Company of the Media Production City, actually contacted him and presented him with the idea. Al-Akkad was very enthusiastic about the project, as its aim would be to show the world the reality of the Palestinian issue. The story of The Vicar Kabuchi would approach the conflict from a new angle: as a conflict between Zionists and Arabs, whether Christian or Muslim, rather that a conflict between Zionists and Muslims. This approach could influence the Western perception of the issue.

From Al-Akkad’s point of view, the movie could have successfully addressed the West with its portrayal of a European Christian man of religion, sympathizing with the Palestinian right to live and defend themselves. It would condemn the cruel Zionist regime for its attacks against an unarmed people. In this context, Al-Akkad tells me that he more than once advised Hanan Ashrawi[1] to wear her crucifix whenever she delivers a speech in an international context to emphasize that the Palestinian issue is not just a Zionist-Muslim affair.

The Vicar Kabuchi lived in the occupied land of Palestine for a long a time without being involved in any political activity, until one day in the 1970s a wounded child called Ali sought refuge from the Israeli forces in his monastery.

At the time it was published in the papers that Omar Sheriff would take the role of the Vicar Kabuchi; but what happened then?

“I believed,” replies Al-Akkad, “that this type of film would most effectively target the Western audience by featuring English-speaking world-famous stars. However, I didn’t mind Omar Sheriff because he is an able and famous actor.

“We would lose much if this film had been starred by local actors, because its impact would have been confined to the Arab world. If it had featured well-known Western actors, it would have achieved the desired effect.”

Mamdouh Al-Lithy responded that he could not provide the necessary budget for the project Al-Akkad had in mind. The negotiations ended there.

Abdul-Nasser

In addition to The Hebron Operation and The Vicar Kabuchi, there are dozens or even hundreds of movie projects to which newspapers have linked Al-Akkad’s name. Some of these projects were about movies tackling the biographies of former and current Arab presidents or kings. When I asked Al-Akkad about the verity of these reports, he posed that contemporary history knows no honorable Arab leader save Abdul-Nasser, who gave this history an aspect of dignity and esteem he, as an Arab, has never seen since.

After seconds of silence, Al-Akkad adds, “I will never forget his speech about the Egyptian ship, the Cleopatra, which reached New York during the War of Attrition. American port workers refused to unload it under pressure of the Zionist lobby. Abdul-Nasser’s response was a speech addressed to the Arab port workers from the ocean to the Gulf, requesting that they refuse to unload of any American ship entering an Arab port.

“The Arab workers complied with Nasser ’s request, which forced the American army to immediately unload the Cleopatra. This incident made all the Arab residents in the United States feel proud of their Arab origin and affiliation to an Arab world on whose land lived a strong man like Abdul-Nasser.”

Al-Akkad notes that he produced a 4-hour documentary film about Abdul-Nasser’s life in English, in which Mohammed Hassanein Haikel is the narrator. The film was not screened in the United States because it covers the event of the Jewish blowup of the Lavon Cinema in Cairo, known as the Lavon Scandal, and the event of the Israeli sinking of the American ship Liberty in the Mediterranean .

Al-Akkad also produced a 7-hour Arabic version of that same film, but not a single Arab channel wanted to broadcast it for reasons he does not know.

With regard to possible documentaries about other Arab leaders, Al-Akkad laughs, “I call upon Allah to give me the opportunity to present their biographies as they are in reality, and this, I believe, would satisfy none of them!”

[1] Hanan Ashrawi (b. 1946) is a Christian Palestinian politician, peace activist, and professor of English literature.


Source: Islam Online

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