CAIRO - Egypt is changing, and so is the entertainment industry. Islamists, who are scrambling for a political niche in post-Mubarak Egypt, have just made inroads into showbusiness. Having been freed from a ban lasting more than five decades, the Muslim Brotherhood and their newly created political party Freedom and Justice have recently said they will support the production of religious and social films ‘to eliminate movies of debauchery'. The announcement has raised concerns among liberals in the Egyptian entertainment industry who fear that the Islamists will restrict creativity and follow the example of Iranian cinema. Proponents of ‘Islamist showbiz', nonetheless, argue that the Islamists, particularly the Muslim Brotherhood, established in 1928, have the right in the New Egypt to vindicate themselves as they have long been miscast on screen as militants and even terrorists. "It is too early to judge this experience before seeing their films," Esmat Hamdi, an entertainment critic this week told the local Radio and TV magazine. "The outcome of this experience will determine whether it should continue or not." Apparently ignoring all the polemics, the Muslim Brotherhood last week launched their first showbiz venture. Mohssen Radi, a member of the Islamist group, unveiled a plan to make a film and a TV serial on the life of the group's founder, Hassan el-Banna. "The project has seen the light of the day thanks to the January 25 revolution because we are free now and art plays an important role in society," he said at a ceremony at a Cairo hotel. Last year, official Egyptian TV broadcast Al-Gamaa (The Group) a bio-serial on el-Banna, which raised the ire of the then-outlawed Muslim Brotherhood. Al-Gamaa, written by celebrated scriptwriter Wahid Hamed, was dismissed by the Brotherhood and their followers as made to distort the history of el-Banna upon orders from the Mubarak administration. The show, generating high viewing rates, significantly hit the airwaves a few months before the parliamentary elections in which the group emerged virtually empty-handed. However, Radi, a media co-ordinator for the production of the new two works, denies that they aim to counter Al-Gamaa. "What we are interested in is objectivity,” he says, denying the Muslim Brotherhood are directly engaged in financing the new shows. They are bankrolled by a Kuwaiti company. The planned film and serial, in which the Syrian actor Rashid Assaf will play the lead role, are due to be shown later this year and in mid-2012, according to their makers. The potential success of these works will most likely motivate Islamists to gain a foothold in the entertainment industry, as they are now doing in the political arena.
