Egyptian Director Marwan Hamed on Portraying Umm Kulthum

Prominent Egyptian director Marwan Hamed, best known internationally for groundbreaking epic “The Yacoubian Building,” more recently shot “El Set,” a biopic of Egyptian icon Umm Kulthum, who is considered the Arab world’s greatest singer.

Kulthum has also been praised by Bob Dylan and Led Zeppelin’s Robert Plant, among other Western artists, and sampled by Beyonce and Shakira.

Hamed’s new Arabic blockbuster with international ambitions, now in post, features Egyptian star Mona Zaki playing the vocalist born in the Nile delta village of Tamay al‐Zahirah, who from the late 1920s onwards became the first Arab singer to disseminate her work to the masses via the new technologies of the times: radio, the phonograph, cinema and television.

In the process, Kulthum recorded some 300 songs over a 60-year career, while conquering millions of fans and disrupting gender norms with her powerful, often politically charged, music.

A sneak 18-minute peek of footage from “El Set” – which is co-produced by Egypt’s Synergy Films, Film Square and Film Clinic, and by Saudi Arabian film fund Big Time Investment – will be unveiled during the upcoming Atlas Workshops held during Morocco’s Marrakech Festival, which opens today.

Variety spoke to Hamed about what Kulthum stands for beyond her superb singing and why she is still very timely and relevant today.

Umm Kulthum obviously is the Arab world’s greatest singer. But she also carries a lot of symbolic significance. She’s a Muslim woman artist who was able to transcend all sexual, religious, political and national barriers. Talk to me about what aspects of her story and personality “El Set” delves into?

The most interesting thing in the film is basically: How did this little girl who used to dress as a boy in a very poor village become this icon? That is the main aspect. It’s not only about her success in music, but also: How did she become a…