MAKING FILM IN EGYPT

An anthropologist walks onto a film set.

In his book Making Film in Egypt: How Labor, Technology, and Mediation Shape the Industry, Chihab El Khachab, PhD, followed the productions of two feature films—Ahmed Fawzi Saleh’s Poisonous Roses and Ahmad Abdalla’s Decor—from pre-production to final cut, providing a comprehensive study of the current state of commercial film production in Cairo. 

The associate professor in visual anthropology at Wolfson College at the University of Oxford will join us to discuss his five biggest takeaways from his eighteen months of field work observing the industry mechanics of the “Hollywood of the East,” which continues to generate the largest output of film in the Arab world.