Egyptian Star Mona Zaki Reflects on Three Decades of Reinvention as El Gouna Honors Her Career: ‘Art Is About Freedom’ — SkimNews
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- Mona Zaki received the Career Achievement Award at the opening ceremony of the 9th El Gouna Film Festival (Oct. 15-23), honored for a body of work spanning more than three decades despite not yet turning 50.
- Zaki identified her two biggest career lessons as learning the power of saying "no" and finding the confidence to express herself emotionally, with acting itself teaching the latter.
- Zaki broke from her "girl next door" screen image with the 2009 Yousry Nasrallah drama "Scheherazade, Tell Me a Story," written by Wahid Hamed, a role that drew intense audience backlash and prompted Hamed to counsel her to stand behind the choice.
- Zaki said she remains locked in a long-running battle to find roles allowing women to address subjects Egyptian cinema treats as taboo, citing "censorship" and the difficulty of finding "a meaningful script."
- Zaki took on the role of Umm Kulthum in Marwan Hamed's biopic "El Sett," basing her performance on "crazy research" including repeated listening to a rare two-hour radio interview of the singer.
- Zaki said the Umm Kulthum role left her physically and emotionally transformed — "I came out of the project feeling that I'm a 70-year-old woman" — and that she struggled for months to recognize herself in the mirror afterward.
Why it matters: Zaki's award arrives with an industry critique attached: she argues that 30 years into her career, Egyptian cinema still struggles to offer women scripts that address taboo subjects, leaving talented actresses underused. For the region's film industry, that gap between recognized star power and available material remains the unresolved story behind the celebration.
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