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Buy The 'Asmahan' Film
£20
(including postage & handling)
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Now available on DVD!
An Egyptian Dance Fantasy, set to a superb sound track of original music and filmed on location in Egypt. Asmahan's captivating dance takes you on an enchanting visual journey through ancient Egypt temples, harems and deserts to meet her goddesses, odalisques and bedouins
An MGMM Production
Music: Mohamad Salem
Recorded by: Mustafa Hamido
Running time: 20 minutes
Costumes: Asmahan
Producer: Frank Hilton
Director: Ralph Zieman
Executive producer: Sharie-Marie Jonsin
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Asmahan was living in London and had been dancing professionally in the United States, Europe and the Middle East for 12 years. This usually meant dancing six nights a week with a few weeks off between contracts. Something else besides continual performances caught her imagination. In the mid eighties London was producing the best rock-videos for the pop stars. The most talented and ingenious artists were creating magical fantasy effects using visuals and dancing to embelish songs and music. Oriental Dance would be a marvelous medium to combine with the pop video techniques. This was something original that had not been done, and seemed like a wonderful idea.
The best videos were being produced at MGMM and Asmahan had a friend who was a production assistant there. This company had just produced Tina Turner- Private Dancer and Duran Duran-Wild Boys, and had literally made almost every great video that had come out. She organized a meeting with one of the small companies who worked within the group, and pitched the idea of producing an Egyptian Dance Fantasy with visuals and special effects. The producer and director loved the idea and wanted to go to Cairo for a location shoot. She became executive producer in charge of finding the capital, developing the concept, designing and making costumes, scouting locations, recording the music, doing the deals with the Egyptian government, and co-ordinating the various aspects of the production.
The Egyptian Ministry of Tourism supported the project providing the contacts and connections to Abbassia, the center of the government administration. Permits for every aspect of film production had to be obtained from government officials. Locations for filming were secured, facilities for bringing in equipment from London and hiring local production were arranged. Asmahan conducted all these meetings and successfully provided the framework on which the production of the film could take place.
Asmahan set up a recording session with Mustafa Hamido to arrange and record the music written by Mohammad Salem. The film was going to be a twenty minute rock video format with a twelve minute magency and eight minute saidi number. Hamido would compose an original saidi song for the sword dance with a chourus. This soundtrack would provide the foundation for the film.
The only Egyptian producer Asmahan knew was Sallah Abou Saif, who had won an award at the Cannes Film Festival. He agreed to provide technicians, equipment and an on-line producer. The producer turned out to be Hussein el Iman the son of Hassan el Iman who had made many of the great black and white 40's films of Tahia Carioaca, Naima Akef and Samia Gamal. The film was to be shot in 65mm and transfered to video for the edit, to give a good quality.
Adel Tahir the Minister of Tourism was intrumental in arranging introductions and was very interested in the idea that Asmahan wanted to recreate scenes of ancient Egypt. He came up with the brilliant idea of using Dr. Rageb's Pharonic Village to film the scenes.
The London crew arrived in Cairo for a one week shoot with most of the equipment. The Ismail Pasha Palace, which is part of the Marriot Hotel, was the location for the dance sequence. The ancient Egytpian queens were filmed in the temple at Dr. Rageb's Pharonic Village, and the sword dance was shot on the desert in front of the Pyramids at Giza.
Back in London the interior scenes were shot at Omar Khayyam which had beautiful arabic decor. The scenes for the introduction and all the cut-away shots were filmed. The final edit was done by Ralph Zieman and the post production was done at Visions using the latest state of art visual affects. The result is an avante-guarde rock video Egyptian Dance Fantasy.
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