Syrian director Mustafa Al Aqad has confirmed that British actor Sean Connery long ago agreed to play Salahiddin Al Ayyoubi in his upcoming film, according to the Arabic daily Al Riyadh.
The director added that many changes had been made to the script to keep in step with international events.
“[M]y film Salahddin Al Ayyoubi will be implemented soon because it constitutes a real interpretation of the current events in Palestine,” Aqad told the daily during his participation in the recent Cairo international Film Festival.
Aqad said that he would familiarize the world with the tolerance in Islam through the character of Salahiddin in an attempt to correct the image of Arabs and Muslims, after Western media attempts to defame them and incite inter-civilization conflicts.
The director compared what Yousef Shahin presented in his film Salahiddin and what he would offer in his new film.
“Shahin introduced Salahiddin's character to the Arabs, but my film will introduce this key character to the Western world in particular, in an attempt to correct our image which the Western media has harmed,” added Aqad.
Aqad also said that he had filed a case against Egyptian TV because it had screened the film Omar Al Mukhtar without prior permission from him, indicating that he had previously not intended to do so, but was spurred to take the case to court by the channel's "unsatisfactory" responses regarding financial compensation.
“My aim in filing the court case is to enforce the [right to royalties] of writers and directors,” said Aqad, adding that the simplest right of others was to respect their innovation.
“I am ready to withdraw the case if the censors give the green light for screening the film Al Risalah starring Abdulla Ghaith. I am sorry for the ban imposed on the film in Egypt, although it was approved in the other Arab countries,” added the director – Albawaba.com
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