Young Egyptian actor Ahmad Al Sakka denied circulating rumors over the existence of a dispute between him and Egyptian actress Hala Shiha, over the latter’s withdrawal from the leading role in his upcoming “The Italian War”. It was rumored that Hala had turned down Ahmad’s offer for the role and accepted another with Egyptian singer Mohammad Foad in his upcoming film “Ghawi Hubb”, which she had recently backed out of as well.
According to the London based weekly, Laha, Ahmad stressed that he never even nominated Hala for the role and the only actress he chose for the part was Nelly Kareem, who had accepted the role without hesitation. Ahmad added that the role in the film, which had witnessed numerous withdrawals, is not the one given to Nelly but a secondary role. The last candidate for the role is Lebanese television announcer Razan Moughrabi.
Lebanese director Nadine Libky had given her apology of being unable to star in the film, in which she was nominated instead of Lebanese singer Mariam Fares. The team of the film had regretfully turned down their nomination to Lebanese singer Mariam Fares after she had requested major changes to the script that could not be altered.
The scenarist of the film Hazem Al Hadid stressed that Mariam wanted changes in the script to match her personality in reality adding that such modifications to the film were impossible in addition to Ahmad’s demands of not changing anything in the film even if it means loosing some of the cast members.
In the midst of filming the, Al Sakka was shocked when he began hearing accusations that the story of the film was stolen from an American film. This is the second time Al Sakka is accused of stealing as story from an American one, the first being his film ‘Tito”. Ahmad ignored the allegations made and stressed that one can not accuse him of such actions before seeing the film.
The remaining cast of the will be Khaled Abu Al Najja, Khaled Saleh, Majdi Kamli, and actor Hussain Yousef in his first appearance away from religious dramas and will play the role of Ahmad’s father in the film.
