Radwan El Kashef
Directing
Biography
Radwan El Kashef (August 6, 1952 - June 5, 2002) was an Egyptian film director and author. He obtained a BA in Film Directing from the Higher Institute of Cinema in Cairo in 1984 and was the first of his class. El Kashef worked as an assistant director in nearly twenty films with Youssef Chahine, Raafat El Mihi, Daoud Abdel Sayed, and others. He was best known for Date Wine (1998), Why, O Violet (1993), and The Magician (2001). In 2002, El Kashef died at the age of 49 due to a sudden heart attack after returning from the International Film Festival Rotterdam in the Netherlands, in which he participated for his last film The Magician. He left behind only 3 films.
Known For
Hassan and Tawhida work in the phone company. They listen in on calls and discover many secrets and crimes, which makes them blackmail the callers and report them to the police. After making a lot of money, they get married and Tawhida wants them to leave their old ways behind.
The Downfall
Set in a mythical small Upper-Egyptian village where people live off planting dates and making of Date Wine, a stranger arrives and calls on people to travel to the abroad for job opportunities, all of the village's grown-up men leave, except for the disabled grandfather and his grandson Ahmed, upon which trouble begins to spread in the village in the absence of men along with his lover Salma. Exploring themes of Rebellion, Desire, Masculinity, Patriarchy, Spirituality and the Ancient Egyptian Mystique.
Date Wine
A portrayal of the lives of four friends who have different dreams and aspirations; Ahmed falls in love with a girl he saw once, Sayed gets in trouble when he sells the laboratory animals, Abbas who is married to a woman that doesn't love him, and Ali who works in illegal operations.
Why, O Violet?
Set in the summer of 1961 during President Nasser's land reforms, this is a story of the childhood friendship between Yasser, the son of a bourgeois landowner, and Leil, the son of an Egyptian peasant. When turbulent times tear Yasser's family apart, the boys team up for a money-making scheme that results in misadventures.
Summer Thefts
When Ahmed's father travels abroad for work, he gets harassed for refusing to give a part of his income to those who helped him travel. The father dies, and when his body arrives in Egypt, the Interpol suspects Ahmed and his father of being members of a terrorist organization.
Fish, Milk, Tamarind
In one of the rural areas of Upper Egypt, the "Najawi" works on a ferry owned by the people to transport the people between the two banks of the river with symbolic reward, to get love and respect for everyone despite his poverty and satisfaction with the little he earns, and exchange love with the beautiful village "Saadia" So Saadia's family objected to the marriage of their daughter Najawi to his poverty
Axe in the head
Bahgat Mansour is an old poor magician that lives a bad life and tries to get a better one by reaching to the rich people. what happens to him and his daughter-that he keeps indoor- then?
The Magician
The Graduation Project of Radwan El-Kashef.