A Message of Schadenfreude from Nadia El Gendy to Nabila Obeid
Variety

A Message of Schadenfreude from Nadia El Gendy to Nabila Obeid

SadaNews - Nadia El Gendy and Nabila Obeid have had a long artistic journey, filled with competition and struggle for the top position among Egypt's and the Arab world's stars. This competition was not free from jealousy, espionage, and occasionally schadenfreude, as they both sought to dominate the scene.

The late writer Mustafa Muharram mentions in his memoirs "My Life in Cinema" one of the artistic works he produced with actress Nabila Obeid, which witnessed the ongoing struggle between the duo. Muharram produced the film "Samara Al-Amir," released in 1992, which starred Nabila Obeid and was based on a story by the writer Naguib Mahfouz.

The film experienced several strange crises, starting with the actual purchase rights for the story from Naguib Mahfouz, after he had already sold it to the National Center for Cinema. However, the center withdrew from this contract, allowing writer Mustafa Muharram to obtain the rights to adapt it into a cinematic film. He paid Naguib Mahfouz 10,000 Egyptian pounds for this right.

The late writer revealed that this period saw jealousy from Nabila Obeid towards Madiha Kamel, who was starring in the film "Shawadir," where she played the role of a folk dancer. Therefore, Nabila Obeid was keen to know all the details about Madiha Kamel's film and ensured that her new film did not contain any details resembling "Shawadir."

Nabila Obeid decided to hire multiple musicians to compose the music for the film, which the writer and director disagreed with, especially since music is the soul of the film and should be presented by only one composer to reflect its spirit. However, Nabila Obeid insisted on her stance.

Nabila Obeid started filming, only to be surprised later that Naguib Mahfouz's story had been sold years ago to producer Jamal El Liethi, who held a position in the Cinema Industry Chamber. This led to another crisis, prompting producer Ibrahim Shawky to pay a huge sum to producer Jamal El Liethi, despite the latter no longer holding the rights after a certain period according to Egyptian law. However, producer Ibrahim Shawky decided to pay the amount anyway.

The film was released in theaters, and as usual, writer Mustafa Muharram went to the "Miami" cinema to observe the audience's reaction during the 10 AM screening. He found the man whom Nadia El Gendy had sent to Nabila Obeid's films present there to send his report to the audience's star and inform her about the public's reaction and the revenues the film was generating.

He also found a man sent by Nabila Obeid to the cinema to provide her with a detailed report on the audience's interaction with the film and its earnings.

The film only managed to stay in theaters for eight weeks, which led to Nabila Obeid's collapse, as she was used to her films running for more than 20 weeks.

Nabila Obeid found no justification for the failure except for the script and direction, and she did not blame herself, while writer Mustafa Muharram revealed Nadi El Gendy's reaction, who left a voice message on Nabila Obeid's home phone via the "Answer Machine," saying in a triumphant tone, "This was the first film... here's to the second one," as stated in the memoirs.