Les Trois Disparitions de Soad Hosni

Rania Stephan

11 Mar — 5 Apr 2014

The Three Disappearances of Soad Hosni is a rapturous elegy to a rich and versatile era of film production in Egypt which has lapsed today, through the work of one of its most revered actress and star: Soad Hosni, who from the early 1960 into the '90s, embodied the modern Arab woman in her complexity and paradoxes. Comedian, tragedian, singer,dancer, the “Cinderella of Arabic cinema” was the daughter, sister, friend, fiancée, lover, wife of the most famous Egyptian actorswhen Egypt was the purveyor of fiction and the imagination factory of all the Arab world.

Completely constituted from the VHS copies of her feature films, The Three Disappearances of Soad Hosni is structured like a three-act classical tragedy, where the actress tells her imaginary life through the dialogues of her movies. Reuse fiction's elements to write another, becomes a documentary closer to the life of the actress and her work. Using the rough texture of the VHS is a tribute to the support that has spread its image across the Arab world.

Irreverent, playful, marvellous and serious, The Three Disappearances of Soad Hosni proposes, in seventy-minutes, a new rewriting, between documentary and fiction of agolden period of Egyptian cinema, enacted by Soad Hosni, an exceptional artist, tragic star and symbol of modern Arab womanhood.

Un film écrit & réalisé par Rania Stephan

Montage image & son: Rania Stephan
Mixage: Rana Eid
Graphisme: May Gaybeh
Post Production:  JOUN FILMS - the postoffice
Post Production Audio: db studios Liban
Produit par : Rania Stephan / JOUN FILMS
Coproduction: Fondation Arabe pour l’Art & la Culture (A.F.A.C.), the postoffice, Forward Film Productions
Co-Commissionné par: Sharjah Art Fondation pour la Biennale de Sharjah X
Avec le soutien de: CNC (France), FIDLAB (Marseille), Serpentine Gallery (UK)

En partenariat avec Le Quartz scène nationale de Brest dans le cadre de DañsFabrik, festival de Brest.