Cairo – Egypt is suffering from major setbacks and drawbacks in cinema industry. Comparing the content-based movies of its golden age in mid 1950-60s to those of today, critics have found violence, vulgarity, smutty language and degrading women to be hallmarks of cinematic works that have had bad ripple effects on the industry. Most of the 44 Egyptian films featuring in the best 100 Arab films of all time were produced during the golden age. On this topic, Cairo International Book Fair held a round table discussion that turned to be a crowd puller, titled, "Cinema Industry in Egypt: challenges and aspirations". 'Azza Sultan' moderated the session that was attended by several film critics and filmmakers, most prominently, the critic 'Essam Zakaria', film director and critic 'Ahmed Hassouna', 'Dr. Mohammad Ezz Al-Arab', film critic 'Hossam Hafez' and Film critic 'Mohamed Tarek'. The panelists discussed the challenges facing the film industry in Egypt nowadays, particularly the decline in cinematographic works; plagiarism and lack of 'meaningful cinema'. Factors led to to irreparable damage in this field. The panelists traded ideas back-and-forth, finding that there was very much difference between Egyptian cinema now and the recent past in the second half of the last century. Since the 1990s, Egypt's cinema has gone in separate directions. Smaller art films attract some international attention but sparse attendance at home.
