Saturday April 4, 2020
By: Alexandra Kinia
Translated by: Dina Al Mahdy

Every Ramadan, since 2013, the pioneering Egyptian screenwriter Mariam Naoum captivates audiences with her boundary-pushing plots in an industry which believes that radically-feminist works could never achieve mainstream success. Her genuine series are populated by complex, flawed, realistic female characters that are exclusively unprecedented on Arab television.

In 2020, Mariam Naoum cooperates with prominent Egyptian director Kamla Abu Zikry in a new movie titled Taht El-Mazala (Under the Umbrella, 1969), based on a collection of short stories by the internationally renowned writer Naguib Mahfouz. Interestingly, this movie is not the duo’s first collaborative contribution, yet this project is expected to be not only one of the blockbusters but also “one of the largest cinematic productions” in the Arab world, especially that the anthology includes five independent short stories that will be featured in the movie including the main…