In her capacity as widow of the late Egyptian marshal Abdel Hakim Amer, actress Berlanti Abdel Hamid threatened to file a case in order to stop the shooting of the film al Rais wa al Muhir (the president and the marshal).
The film tackles the friendship between the late Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Naser and late Marshal Abdel Hakim Amer since they were students at the military academy until Amer committed suicide after the 1967 crisis.
“I was surprised when the head of the Production Department at the Media Production City Mamdouh al Laithi announced that he tapped Khaled Yousef for directing the film and that preparations were underway to shoot the film without showing me the script as he promised,” Berlanti told the London-based Arabic daily al Sahrq al Awsat.
She added, “I will not allow the emergence of a new cinema production that would defame the image of the late Marshal as was the case in the film Abdel Naser by the director Anwar al Qawadri which included wrong information and unreal events, the fact that has spurred me to file a case against the filmmakers at that time.”
For his part Laithi said, “I will not permit anybody to impose his point of view on me. I have read about the ties between Abdel Naser and the Marshal and reached a vision, I believed closest to the fact, and included it in the film.”
Regarding nominations of stars for playing roles in the film, Laithi said that he has not yet made up his mind although he was thinking of Hisham Salim to play the role as the Marshal.
As for Berlanti’s claim that the Marshal was assassinated rather than committed suicide, Laithi pointed out that he would present both points of view and leave the final judgement for the audience -- Albawaba.com
