Stars from the Arab world perform at exhibition in Paris – BBC News Arabic

The stars who appeared in the exhibition had political influence, as “Umm Kulthum was the embodiment of Arabism” during the time of the late Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser, while “Warda, through his songs, carried the question of the decolonization of Algeria, and the Lebanese singer Fairouz. The banner of the Palestinian cause was raised and Asmahan (a Druze princess) cooperated with the allies during World War II, ”according to Hanna Boghanim.

If Umm Kulthum united the whole Arab world, then Fairuz also made agree “all the Lebanese”, according to what the musician Ibrahim Maalouf said in a recent documentary film entitled “Diva”. “The Lebanese Ambassador to the Stars” has been a rare factor in national unity in a country that has yet to recover from the divisions that have torn it apart.

Among the show’s co-stars, Fayrouz is the only one still alive, and she is now 86 years old.

The singer, who was known to stay away from the media spotlight except to cover French President Emmanuel Macron’s visit to his home in late August 2020, did not respond to requests from the exhibition’s organizers, that they regretted. . .

Also, “The Algerian Rose” was one of the stars who broke free from the restrictions of society. In 1972, she returned to the stage to celebrate the 10th anniversary of Algeria’s independence after having stopped singing at the request of her army officer husband. Then she divorced to end her artistic career, which began at the age of eleven in her father’s nightclub “Tam Tam” in Paris, and returned to Egypt, where she also entered the world of cinema.

There is also room for Asmahan whose short life was more like a novel, with scandals related to her lovers, alcohol, poker, etc., and her stardom career behind the mic and the screen, not to mention spying for her. allies.

She died prematurely at the age of twenty-seven, in still mysterious circumstances, as her car was found in the Nile …

Other notable women the exhibition touched on was Egyptian Samia Gamal, who played her husband’s rival Dalida in the film “A Cigarette and a Cup” (1954) amid a flourishing film production in France. Cairo, which was the “Hollywood of the East”.

Hana Boughanem said that the attribution of a pavilion to Dalida in the exhibition will attract the large French public, “who do not know all these Arab stars to the same degree”.

And she added: “We wanted to present it to her in its Egyptian context, from the film” 1954 “to the drama film” The Sixth Day “in which she played, directed by Youssef Chahine in 1986, a year before her death.