Fatima Rushdi was an Egyptian actress, film director, and producer who
is known as one of the pioneers of Egyptian cinema.Born in Alexandria,
Fatima Rushdi moved to Cairo at 14 to become an actress. Without any
formal training, and speaking only Arabic, she started her own
theatrical troupe in 1926 and travelled throughout North Africa.
Theater director `Aziz `Id fell in love with her and enabled her to
learn to read and write. She became known as the "Bernhardt of the
Orient" for reprising many of Sarah Bernhardt's famous roles.Her first
film appearance was in Ibrahim Lama's Faji`a Fawq Al-Haram in 1928. In
1933, she directed her first and only film, al-Zarwaj, which premiered
in Paris. No surviving copies are known, and in her 1970 memoir, she
claimed to have burned the completed film. In the film, she starred as
a woman pushed into an unhappy marriage by her father who dies
tragically at the end.She acted in several films by Kamal Selim,
including the realist film al-`Azima (1939), where she played a young
working-class girl falling in love with the neighbour's son. Her last
screen appearance was in 1955, in a secondary role in Ahmad Diya`
al-Din's Da`uni A`ish / Let Me Live.
is known as one of the pioneers of Egyptian cinema.Born in Alexandria,
Fatima Rushdi moved to Cairo at 14 to become an actress. Without any
formal training, and speaking only Arabic, she started her own
theatrical troupe in 1926 and travelled throughout North Africa.
Theater director `Aziz `Id fell in love with her and enabled her to
learn to read and write. She became known as the "Bernhardt of the
Orient" for reprising many of Sarah Bernhardt's famous roles.Her first
film appearance was in Ibrahim Lama's Faji`a Fawq Al-Haram in 1928. In
1933, she directed her first and only film, al-Zarwaj, which premiered
in Paris. No surviving copies are known, and in her 1970 memoir, she
claimed to have burned the completed film. In the film, she starred as
a woman pushed into an unhappy marriage by her father who dies
tragically at the end.She acted in several films by Kamal Selim,
including the realist film al-`Azima (1939), where she played a young
working-class girl falling in love with the neighbour's son. Her last
screen appearance was in 1955, in a secondary role in Ahmad Diya`
al-Din's Da`uni A`ish / Let Me Live.
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