Coming to DVD next Tuesday, January 23:
NASSER’S REPUBLIC: THE MAKING OF MODERN EGYPT
Director:
Michal Goldman
Premiere:
Washington DC International Film Festival 2016
Select Festivals:
IFF Boston, Cairo, Pan-African, Luxor African, African Disaspora
About:
A profile of Egyptian leader Gamal Abdel Nasser.
Nasser quickly rose to power in Egypt as one of the leaders of the 1952 revolution, a military coup to abolish the monarchy and end the British occupation. Following its success, and a later face-off with the Muslim Brotherhood, the charismatic Nasser became Egypt’s president and continued widespread reforms, including the nationalization of the Suez Canal and the formation of a nascent pan-Arab nation. As Goldman points out in her educational but workmanlike film, however, is that while Nasser brought many positive contributions to Egypt – and tried to accomplish much more that might very well have helped to stabilize the Middle East – he unfortunately failed to institute a true democracy. As a result, while hailed as Egypt’s great liberator, he also became the nation’s dictator until his death in 1970, setting the course for subsequent decades of authoritarian rule. In many ways, however, the Egypt that Nasser set out to transform shared much in common with today’s post-Arab Spring one, a country seeking to move beyond Mubarak and build a new, modern nation, making Goldman’s project timely for its historical contextualization and analysis.
what (not) to doc 