Al Haram is a classical 1965 Egypt

Egypt

Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...

ian drama film

Drama film

A drama film is a film genre that depends mostly on in-depth development of realistic characters dealing with emotional themes. Dramatic themes such as alcoholism, drug addiction, infidelity, moral dilemmas, racial prejudice, religious intolerance, poverty, class divisions, violence against women...

 directed by Henry Barakat. The film stars Faten Hamama

Faten Hamama

Faten Hamama is an Egyptian producer and an acclaimed actress of film, television, and theatre. She was regarded for her performances in a range of film genres, from melodramas to historical films and occasional comedies, though her chief successes were romantic dramas...

, Zaki Rostom

Zaki Rostom

Zaki Rostom Zaki Moharram Mahmoud Rostom Egyptian actor belongs to a school of integration, and is one of the most important actor of the Egyptian cinema....

, and Abdallah Gheith and is based on a novel by the same title by Yūsuf Idrīs

Yusuf Idris

Yusuf Idris, also Yusif Idris was an Egyptian writer of plays, short stories, and novels. Idris originally trained to be a doctor, studying at the University of Cairo...

. The film was nominated for the Prix International award at the 1965 Cannes Film Festival

1965 Cannes Film Festival

-Jury:*André Maurois *Olivia de Havilland *Goffredo Lombardo *Max Aub *Michel Aubriant *Rex Harrison *François Reichenbach...

. It was also chosen as one of the best Egyptian film productions in the Egyptian Cinema centennial. A survey by Al-Fonoon magazine in 1984 chose it as one of the best ten films in the history of Egyptian cinema

Cinema of Egypt

The cinema of Egypt refers to the flourishing Egyptian Arabic-language film industry based in Cairo, the capital of Egypt. Since 1976, Cairo has held the annual Cairo International Film Festival, which has been accredited by the International Federation of Film Producers Associations. There is also...

.

Plot

Azizah, a poor peasant, portrays worker oppression in this somber social drama. She gets savagely raped by a guard when she goes into the fields to gather potatoes. She does not reveal what had happened to her husband who is suffering from an illness. She conceals the pregnancy and throttles the baby after it is born. She also dies soon thereafter. The migrant workers rally around her memory as she becomes a martyr to the cause of the struggling peasants.

The newspaper Le Monde

Le Monde

Le Monde is a French daily evening newspaper owned by La Vie-Le Monde Group and edited in Paris. It is one of two French newspapers of record, and has generally been well respected since its first edition under founder Hubert Beuve-Méry on 19 December 1944...

wrote: "we have attracted to this movie due to the true picture that reflects the suffering of this village, the picture is not about a problem for one individual, it’s about the reflection of everything surrounding her, from people to culture."

Cast

• Faten Hamama
  Faten Hamama
  Faten Hamama is an Egyptian producer and an acclaimed actress of film, television, and theatre. She was regarded for her performances in a range of film genres, from melodramas to historical films and occasional comedies, though her chief successes were romantic dramas...
  
   as Azizah.
• Zaki Rostom
  Zaki Rostom
  Zaki Rostom Zaki Moharram Mahmoud Rostom Egyptian actor belongs to a school of integration, and is one of the most important actor of the Egyptian cinema....
  
   as the guard.
• Abdallah Gheith as Aziza's husband.