Bio-Pic of Hassan Al-Banna

Remember how I mentioned in an earlier post the two varieties of Arab cinema? High-brow art films for Western audiences and low-brow Egyptian films for Arab audiences. Well, here comes the unfortunate addendum to that list. Religious Propaganda films for...umm...no idea.

A member of the Muslim Brotherhood (Egypt's Islamist organization and main opposition to the current government) has announced that he will start shooting the bio-pic of Hassan Al-Banna. Al-Banna is the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood and both he and Sayyid Qutb (author of Social Justice in Islam) are often credited with the modern call for a return to an Islamic state. Groups like Hamas are driven by the ideology associated with the Muslim Brotherhood. His movie will be called, "Hassan Al-Banna — An Unfinished Journey" and will be funded by Al-Banna's family, among others. Sadly, I'm quite skeptical that this movie is going to really push the 'art of filmmaking' forward. Argh.

Full article here