Tuesday cinema in June. Cycle dedicated to 'Classics of Arab cinema'.

The films chosen for the Tuesday Film Sessions in June are great classics of Arab cinema, unknown films that will undoubtedly surprise spectators, both those who usually attend our screenings and those who come to them for the first time.

The 1940s, 50s and 60s saw cinema made in the Arab world, especially in Egypt (where it had a tradition dating back to silent films made as early as 1907), flourish and usher in a golden age. The era of the big studios began, producing blockbusters (romantic comedies with happy endings, musicals and melodramas) and enshrining stars such as Faten Hamama, Omar Sharif, Farid Shawqi, Naima Akef and Amina Rizq.

It is a fertile period in which great works of Arab literature (novels by Taha Hussein, Naguib Mahfouz or Yusuf Idris, among others) are adapted into films, and in which even renowned writers such as Mahfouz himself developed a career as screenwriters.

Films such as The call of the scarlet hawk o SinThe films, reflecting the best of that period, are part of our June programme, and a magnificent and classic example of Egypt's powerful film industry, a benchmark for the rest of Arab cinema, where 3 out of 4 films have been produced in Egypt.