The film, in which dark-skinned British actress Adele James plays the character of pharaonic queen Cleopatra, who ruled Egypt between 51 and 30 BC.
The Administrative Court of the Egyptian Council of State on Wednesday received a complaint from lawyer Amr Abdel Salam, demanding that the Egyptian authorities intervene to stop the streaming of the Netflix platform for the aforementioned film.
The trial included:
Demanding from the judiciary to compel all relevant parties in Egypt to take all diplomatic steps and communicate with relevant international organizations, and to take regional and international litigation actions before US judicial authorities to stop the broadcast and dissemination of the documentary film Cleopatra on Netflix platform. Asking the platform and the filmmakers to pay financial compensation to the Egyptian government and people for the material and moral damage suffered by this film. The Egyptian authorities are obliged, according to article 50 of the Constitution, to preserve the cultural heritage in all possible forms and ways, including by diplomatic means, by approaching the international organizations concerned with the preservation of the cultural heritage and by taking international and regional judicial measures to put an end to this attack. and hunt down its authors, given that this heritage is a national and human wealth that must be preserved. The film contains gross historical inaccuracies and is a blatant attack on Egypt’s civilizational and cultural heritage. It involves the falsification of established facts and the falsification of Egyptian history.
The lawsuit considered that “the film constitutes an external cultural and media invasion of the Egyptian cultural and civilizational heritage launched by the colonial countries as one of their soft powers in achieving their influence and goals by stealing the cultural and civilizational heritage, in order to nullify the identity and falsify history and attribute it to unknown peoples who did not exist when civilization was born.” ancient pharaohs thousands of years ago.
This trial was preceded by a member of the Egyptian Parliament’s Foreign Relations Committee, Hana Anis Rizkallah, requesting a briefing from the ministers of foreign affairs, culture, tourism and antiquities regarding what she described as attempts of falsification and falsification of historical facts about Egypt. civilisation, concerning the film Cleopatra on the Netflix platform.
There are also email campaigns launched by Egyptians on social media to reject the film and demand its ban, as critics believe the film falsifies the history of ancient Egypt by using a dark-skinned actress to portray the personality of Queen Cleopatra, and that this falsification comes under what the Pan-Africanist group says about the lineage of Pharaonic civilization to black Africans.
For his part, the famous Egyptian archaeologist Zahi Hawass told Sky News Arabia that the question of the intervention of the Egyptian authorities to prevent this film is not possible in this case because the platform and the filmmakers have recently declared that it It was neither a history nor a documentary. work as much as it is a dramatic work based on the imagination.
Hawass, who previously served as Egypt’s Minister of Antiquities, also said:
Despite my rejection of the forgery found in the film, I do not support its banning, as I refuse to ban any work of art, no matter how many errors it contains. If Egypt intervened and demanded that the American authorities take measures to prevent the screening of the film, the answer would be that the freedom of art and opinion cannot be affected. I am with freedom of opinion and expression, and works of art should be answered by other works of art that reveal facts. Likewise, these questions are answered by revealing facts to Egyptian and international public opinion, and the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities has done well in the statement it has published in this regard. I fully confirm that all historical evidence confirms that Cleopatra was white and never black, and it has nothing to do with racism, because all black people have all respect, but it has to do with historical facts and our desire not to falsify them.
What did the Ministry of Antiquities say?
Earlier, the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities issued a statement regarding the film, in which it said: The appearance of the heroine in this body is a falsification of Egyptian history and a gross historical error, especially more than the film is classified as a documentary. and not as a drama.
Those responsible for making the film must strive for accuracy and rely on historical and scientific facts, ensuring that the history and civilizations of peoples are not falsified. It was necessary to consult archaeologists and anthropologists to make this kind of documentaries and historical films, which will continue to bear witness to civilizations and the history of nations. There are many effects of Queen Cleopatra, showing her true characteristics in terms of fair skin, drawn nose and thin lips. The state of rejection witnessed by the film before its release stems from a sense of defense of the story of Queen Cleopatra VII, which is an important and genuine part of Egypt’s ancient history, far from any ethnic racism.
The ministry did not refer to any legal measures to stop the film.
Netflix gets involved
Faced with all these criticisms, the Netflix platform changed the classification of the film from documentary-only to documentary-drama, in order to give its directors a free space to use the imagination without committing to the story. The film’s heroine, British actress Adele James, continues to post behind-the-scenes footage from the film’s set through her accounts on communication sites, and tweeted via Twitter earlier, asking those who don’t like the cast of the film not to follow him. It has been noticed that the list of movies for the month of May, which was announced by Netflix on its official Facebook page, does not include the film Cleopatra, which had previously announced its screening date as May 10. , and did not announce at the same time that he had retired from showing it.
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