El-Kashef was born on 6 August 1952, barely two weeks after the July Revolution. He was active in the student movement and was repeatedly imprisoned for his dissident politics, the reason why he graduated from Cairo University’s Faculty of Arts, Department of Philosophy, in 1978, some years after his contemporaries.
El-Kashef went on to the Higher Institute of Cinema from which he graduated in 1984, and in the next two years made his mark with three short films: Al- Janoubiya (The Southern Woman, his 1984 graduation project); Al-Warsha (The Workshop, 1985) and Hayat Ba’ie Mutajawil (Life of a Salesman, 1986). By the time El-Kashef married Azza Kamel — with whom he had two children, a girl, Aida, in 1990, and a boy, Mustafa, in 1997 — his career was underway.
During the 1970s El-Kashef stood out as a lone voice from the Egyptian south, unique in as much as the profound desire to examine the deepest recesses of national consciousness never conflicted with his loyalty to… read more
El-Kashef was born on 6 August 1952, barely two weeks after the July Revolution. He was active in the student movement and was repeatedly imprisoned for his dissident politics, the reason why he graduated from Cairo University’s Faculty of Arts, Department of Philosophy, in 1978, some years after his contemporaries.
El-Kashef went on to the Higher Institute of Cinema from which he graduated in 1984, and in the next two years made his mark with three short films: Al- Janoubiya (The Southern Woman, his 1984 graduation project); Al-Warsha (The Workshop, 1985) and Hayat Ba’ie Mutajawil (Life of a Salesman, 1986). By the time El-Kashef married Azza Kamel — with whom he had two children, a girl, Aida, in 1990, and a boy, Mustafa, in 1997 — his career was underway.
During the 1970s El-Kashef stood out as a lone voice from the Egyptian south, unique in as much as the profound desire to examine the deepest recesses of national consciousness never conflicted with his loyalty to (left-wing) ideals of progress or the belief in liberty and equality. The heir of second-generation realists like Mohamed Khan, Khairi Bishara, Dawoud Abdel- Sayed and the late Atef El-Tayeb (who had in turn built on the classical realism of Salah Abu Seif, Youssef Chahine, Henri Barakat and Tawfik Saleh) El- Kashef, along with Osama Fawzi, Sayed Said and Yousri Nasrallah, developed a metaphysically inclined version of magic realism. He would make only one more short film, Nissaa min Asrina (Women of Our Times, 1999), a continuation of themes he had explored in his widely acclaimed feature debut Lieh ya Banafseg (Violets are Blue, 1992), which obliquely tackled women’s oppression in what remains a chauvinist (and backward) society. But it is to Araq Al-Balah, perhaps, that we must look to find the quintessential El-Kashef, for it is in this 1997 film that the director’s mythology of Upper Egyptian village life finds its clearest, most condensed expression, as he depicts a community in which the men, all the men, are perpetually absent.
Despite the consistent metaphysical inflections of El-Kashef’s voice it remains possible to read autobiographical elements in the character of Ahmed, the protagonist of Araq Al-Balah and for a long time the sole male inhabitant of the village. Barely an adult, he faints on seeing the blood of children during their circumcision, fails to shoot his mortal rival and sympathises with the older woman who tries to introduce him to sex. Ahmed experiences a childlike joy on discovering the pleasures of sex, is entirely devoted to making fellow villagers happy, and his greatest ambition is to climb to the top of the magic palm the dates of which will yield a wine that will heal his grandfather and bring joy to everyone around. The ascent is repeatedly attempted, at great risk to life and limb, though the dream remains forever out of reach. —weekly.ahram.org.eg
