It has been eight years since the legendary director Mohamed Khan passed away. Khan's contribution to Egyptian cinema is immense.
In a career that spanned over 40 years, he directed more than 35 shorts and feature-length films.
Born in 1942 in Cairo to a Pakistani father and an Egyptian mother, Khan developed an interest in cinema at an early age. However, as he often said, he did not know that filmmaking could be taught.
Following his passion, he traveled in 1956 to London to study architecture, only to change his interests and study film; a very fortunate moment for Arab and world cinema.
In 1963, the young filmmaker returned to Cairo to work with Salah Abu Seif and Raafat El-Meehy, as well as other prominent scriptwriters and directors, only to travel back to London after Egypt’s 1967 military defeat against Israel.
Before returning to Cairo in 1977, Khan pursued the academic study of cinema and wrote two books; one about Egyptian cinema and the other about cinema in Czechoslovakia.
Throughout his long-standing career, Khan made several short films such as El-Batikha (The Watermelon, 1972), a 10-minute guide to the "Cinema of Mohamed Khan," from which we can conclude how characters like Shams the photojournalist in Darbet Shams (Sunstroke, 1978), the street footballer in El-Hareef (The Artful,1984), Hend and Camilia (Dreams of Hind and Camilia, 1988), Hayam in Fatat El-Masnaa (Factory Girl, 2014), and Salah in Mr. Karate (1993) were molded into life.
The late director received many accolades including, Bronze Award at the Valencia Film Fest in 1988, Silver Award at the Damascus Film Festival in 1987, and Best Direction from the Egyptian Film Society Festival in 199.
His last work was 'Fatat El-Masna' (The Factory Girl), where Maha El-Rayes (Hayam) watches the beautiful Soad Hosni on TV, abandons a classist patriarchal lover, and also pays the price.
He passed away on 26 July 2016, at the age of 73.
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