CAIRO, 5 December 2006 — The controversial movie “Mafish Ghayr Kida” (“Nothing Else”) came under fire at a seminar, which was reviewing films featured in the recent Cairo International film festival, the daily Al-Watan reported yesterday.
While critics and journalists said the movie was not much different from a pornographic movie, the film’s team defended the work as an experiment in film genre.
In the movie, actress Nabila Obaid plays the role of a mother who encourages her daughters to discard moral and ethical values in order to become successful.
The rest of the cast includes Khaled Abu Naja. Sousan Badr, Arwa, Ahmad Azmi and Rola Mahmoud.
The film highlights a trend in which newcomers striving to make it in the movie industry use nudity as a shortcut to stardom.
Refuting the charge that “Mafish Ghayr Kida” was a reflection of the belly dancer Ruby’s life, the scriptwriter Kauthar Mustafa said, “I do not know Ruby’s story but there are a thousand other Rubys and this film is just a glimpse into their lives.”
The participants in the seminar mocked at Nabila Obaid’s attempt to defend her role as that of an ideal mother who sacrifices herself for the sake of her children.
The critics, who feared that the movie would have a negative impact on youth, wondered how a mother could persuade her daughter to strip her clothes to become a music video star and encourage her to have an affair with a commercial producer.