Cairo - Mohamed Ammar
The presentation of "Grand Hotel" series, in Ramadan 2016, raised a lot of questions about the role of art in supporting tourism, where the series was filmed in the eternal city of Aswan. In contrary to many artworks, the series highlighted the beauty, instead of focusing on slums and soiled places, what made the audience asking an important question about the role of art in beautifying reality and highlighting the beautiful areas of Egypt.
In the beginning, the director Ismael Gamal said that cinema has always stood out the aesthetics of the Egyptian streets through a series of songs that screened on the streets. He added that the beginning of "Ghazal Al Banat" by the late great Anwar Wagdy, was a song by Laila Murad on the horse, and trees and orchards surrounded her. He clarified films and series screened for commercial purposes now, filming it in closed places and the aesthetics of cinema have disappeared.
While the film writer Mohamed Aziz said that cinema in the modern era lacked to show the landscape sceens in Egypt, adding most of the films are "action" and even when the cinema tries to show popular places, it appear distorted.
Actor Maged El Masry said that the cinema was really missing to highlight the features of Egypt, adding that producing companies look at the gain only now.
The great actress Sameha Ayoub said that cinema should offer Egypt its clean streets and wonderful tourist places, adding that art is always the ambassador of the country.