Tonight, on Friday the 18th, the great Egyptian writer and Nobel Prize winner Naguib Mahfouz (1911-2006) was celebrated in a panel at the Discussion Forum at the Fair. For an hour, literary and film agent and producer Anna-Soler Pont (Spain), film producer Annemarie Jacir (Lebanon), and Philip Kennedy (UK), professor at NYU Abu Dhabi, talked about Mahfouz’ writings and the movies based on them. The event was hosted by Peter Scarlet (USA), film director and Director of the Abu Dhabi Film Festival.
It was great to see such passionate people talking about Naguib Mahfouz. In fact, Phil Kennedy’s very first phrase was: “I love Mahfouz”. And according to Anna-Soler, Mahfouz changed her life.
“Mahfouz changed my life when I went to Cairo. He told me: ‘I’m no one important. You should meet some really important people.’ He introduced me to some writers that used to have coffee with him and I got back to Europe with a few authors I could represent as a literary agent, and ever since then – for the past 25 years – I’ve been in the agency business,” Anna told us enthusiastically.
So many things are really impressive in Mahfouz’ work. Among them, special mention should go to his ability to write as if he were really watching the scene in front of him. “And we must remember that this was at a time when writers had only paper and pencil (or typewriter,)” Peter Scarlet reminded the audience.
According to the panelists, Mahfouz understood the difference between writing a novel and writing movies. And he was great at both. Mahfouz wrote more than 35 novels and sixteen screenplays over the course of his long life, among many other pieces. “There was not a single day that he didn’t write,” Philip Kennedy told us. And for Kennedy, Mahfouz’ best writings were done between the 1940s to the 1960s, “which doesn’t mean that what he did at other times were not very good,” he points out.
The panelists agreed that disappointment is a common motif running through Mahfouz’s work. In every novel or screenplay, there was always someone disappointed.
Anna-Soler finished her participation with a piece of advice: “If you are looking for material for a good movie – or know someone who is looking for it – you should/must look at Mahfouz ‘ novels. There is lots of material still to be used.”
The host, Peter Scarlet, concluded the panel with this injunction: ”Read Mahfouz! If you have already read some, read more. If you’ve never read, it’s a good time to start. This year is his centenary. We are going to have an important celebration about him at the Abu Dhabi Film Festival in October!”
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