Umm Kulthum, Abdel Halim Hafez, Asmahan, and Mohamed Abdel Wahab were not just singers who appeared in films. they He was, At that time, cinema.
Their voices carried the emotional weight of entire films, e.g The passion has come (Love is on its way to us) in My father is above the shaghara (My Father in a Tree, 1969). A single song could stretch for forty minutes, while the camera lingered on facial expressions that seemed to renew with each modification of the tune.
However, this marriage between cinema and music never ended. It has only changed with the passage of time, and today, a new generation is rewriting Egyptian cinema through music.
At Petit Paine in Paris on Friday, April 10, the Arab Cultural Platform Movie talk the introduction Maqama curated program of ten short films that opens the Paris station Ziad Zaza and the Lege-Cy World Tour.
This event is a living statement of how young Arab filmmakers are reclaiming music as an essential storytelling tool, pushing it beyond a performance or playlist into a story that carries the emotion of the entire film.
The title itself is derived from the Arabic musical scale. A Maqam It is not a fixed set of notes but a path and way of moving between subtle emotions and colours.
While the genre has shifted from classical orchestration to the raw pulse of trap and rap, the instinct has not changed, which is to use music as narrative architecture.
Hayat Al-JuwailiThe Kalam Films Foundation and the film director herself see this merger as a return and a radical development at the same time. “The new wave of Egyptian artists dominating the music charts is organically swooping into Egyptian cinema as well,” she explains.
“Because it became the soundtrack to the lives of Egyptian youth, it naturally also became the soundtrack to the films they made or appeared in. Rappers became actors, actors became musical artists. The labels began to disappear.”
There are two films in particular that speak directly to the evening’s performers, e.g 60 Egyptian pounds (short 2023)It is directed by Amr Salama, and stars Egyptian rapper and singer Ziad Zaza Mother of the World (Mother of the Nation 2024)It is directed by Marwan Tarek and includes a song by Zaza.
Al-Juwaili points out that this creative fluidity also extends to the sound itself. “In the same way that this generation has become more flexible with their brands, moving between music and film, and owning their visual identity, they are also more flexible with their sounds,” she says.
She adds: “Ziad Zaza is a great example. Each of his projects sounds completely different from the last, moving from traditional rap and trap music to pop and electronic sounds. What we are witnessing, on a large scale, is a generation of artists who refuse to be defined or restricted.”
In an age where music is often reduced to a three-minute live broadcast, the place goes back to the beauty of Arab culture, where music has always helped build entire worlds.
It tells stories when words aren’t enough, and expresses emotions, such as sadness, strength, love, and belonging, in a way that stays with us long after it’s over.
While the sounds have changed and become more modern and vibrant, the way they move, the flowing emotional journey that defines Maqam, has remained the same.