Mohamed Shebl
Directing
Biography
Director, actor and screenwriter, born in 1949. He received a master’s degree in sciences studying Chinese and Russian languages from the Institute of Oriental Studies at Moscow University in 1976. He directed 12 documentaries about the life of director Youssef Chahine, the most recent of which is Chahine and the Court in 1995.
Known For
A dancer asks a politician with whom she once had an affair to use his influence on her behalf.
The Dancer & the Politician
Murtada al-Salamuni's father's mansion gets seized and his wife leaves him, forcing him to reside in his family's country house. He tries to find work at Abdullah Bahnas, but he rejects him. Murtada decides to take revenge by cooperating with three thieves. led by Mahrous to steal important papers from by Abdullah to blackmail him.
We're All Thieves, My Dear
High school teacher Mahmoud lives with his entire family in a tiny apartment. The landlord's attempts to evict them reaches the point of enlisting the Devil’s help.
The Talisman
The story deals with an upscale family that is down on its luck. As the butcher Madbouly foots the bills for the entire family, the authoritative Berlanty is the one in charge. When the carpenter Ragab falls for Madbouly's niece Amal, Berlanty insists he finishes his education first.
In Your Hands
The director's final work prior to his early death to chronic liver disease was this gleefully ghoulish horror comedy, which imparted the following straightforward moral: if you smother your wife to death with a bowl of porridge and bury her remains in a shallow grave, purely in order to start a new life with your mistress - then don't be too surprised if your wife returns and is more than a little angry about the situation! Like Shabl's two previous features, the film was released theatrically before also becoming a minor hit on home video.
Love and Revenge... With a Meat Cleaver
When Ali and Mona's car breaks down en route to a party, the couple seek the nearest house to make an emergency call, only to find that they've arrived at the home of the revered Count Dracula. An unfaithful remake of the musical cult classic The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Although the story is apparently the same, Shebl’s film is almost too homoerotic to handle. Weaved into its camp aesthetics, horror genre tropes and 80s disco numbers, Anyab provides a running commentary on the social situation in Egypt, from youth unemployment to class struggle, while intersecting sexual politics into the mix.
Fangs
Journalist suffers from recurring nightmares about an abandoned mansion.