The images shot on Egyptian film sets by prominent photographer Fouad ElKoury over more than a decade capture the essence of Arab cinema.
Cairo is to Arabic cinema what Hollywood is to American cinema. In the minds of most Arabs, Egyptian cinema is a reference point, many of its actors and actresses are divas with a global following and some film scenes are immortal.
From cinemas and theatres to studios, both on set and off, prominent photographer Fouad ElKoury sought to capture the essence of Egyptian cinema. Whether observing filming, exploring behind the scenes, or interacting with filmmakers, actors, actresses, and technicians, his goal was to encapsulate the entire spectrum of this cinematic world.
From 1985 to 1996, ElKoury entered this cinema industry, taking photographs of over 17 film sets (such as "The Destiny" by Youssef Chahine), major actors (Omar Sharif, Mahmoud Abdel Aziz, Ahmed Zaki...) actresses (Faten Hamama, Taheyya Kariokka, Yousra, Soad Hosni, Sherihan...), film makers (Youssef Chahine, Hussein Kamal, Mohamed Khan...), studios.
Selected from the artists' archive, most of the photographs in this book have never been published before, while others have reached worldwide fame, such as Sherihan's photograph in a theater.
The book is bilingual, in Arabic and English, with an introductory text by Fouad ElKoury.
After qualifying as an architect in London, in 1979, Fouad Elkoury (born 1952 in Paris, lives and works in Paris and Beyrut) turned to photography, producing a report on daily life in Lebanon. His images appeared in Libération and other publications. In 1984, he published Beyrouth Aller–Retour, documenting the life of a war-torn city. In 1991 he and other photographers were commissioned to take part in a project in downtown Beirut, to document the aftermath of war. This was later published in an album entitled Beirut City Centre, by Editions du Cyprès, Paris, and was the subject of an exhibition at the Palais de Tokyo, Paris, in 1993. The book has since become a milestone in the history of photography. In 1997, Elkoury co-founded the Beirut-based Arab Image Foundation, an organization that seeks to archive and preserve photography from the region. The following year he moved to Turkey and produced an extensive photographic travelogue, the last of his exclusively photographic series. In 2002, the Maison Européenne de la Photographie in Paris commissioned him to create an exhibition for which he presented a new collection of photographic compositions, incorporating sequential images to emphasize meaning. As part of the exhibition he premiered his first video Lettres à Francine, based on his photographs of Turkey. The exhibition catalogue, Sombres, is published by Marval. Since then, he has alternated between photography and video, as well as writing, with his first text, La Sagesse du Photographe, published in Paris in 2004.
