Muhammad Bayyumi

Muhammad Bayyumi ( Arabic محمد بيومي, DMG Muḥammad Bayyūmī ; born on January 3, 1894 in Tanta ; died July 15, 1963 in Alexandria ) was an Egyptian film director , producer , cameraman and actor . From 1923 to 1937 he was involved in various functions in the production of Egyptian documentaries and dramas .

Career

Muhammad Bayyumi was born in 1894 to a family of wealthy cotton merchants in the city of Tanta on the Nile Delta . As a child he occupied himself with drawing and photography, worked in watch shops during the school holidays and took photos with friends for a fee. He began studying in October 1911, but began an officer career in the Egyptian army in October 1912. During the First World War he served as an officer in Sudan and Palestine . In April 1918 he was transferred to the reserve for disobedience to British officers. During the following years he worked as a tailor and cabinet maker.

As early as 1911, at the age of 17, Bayyumi had joined a nationalist youth organization. During the revolution of 1919 he authored and published The Scissors magazine to raise funds to support underground organizations.

After the revolution, Bayyumi founded the theater group Valley of the Nile ( Wadî el Nîl ) in Alexandria in July 1919 with his friend Bishara Wakim . In addition to Mary Mounib, the group included some actors who began their careers as amateurs here. Then, surprisingly for his surroundings, Bayyumi set out for the first time to Europe to travel through Italy and Austria. He met Charlotte Joseph Kralowetz, whom he married in 1920 and took with him to Egypt.

After a while, Bayyumi traveled to Europe again and visited Berlin with the aim of studying film. The film director Carl Wilhelm initially got him a job in film development at UFA . Bayyumi later played some minor roles in productions of the Gloria film. Although this job was lucrative, he gave it up to become an assistant to the cameraman Bäringer. He taught Bayyumi the basics of film making and helped him buy the film equipment with which he returned to Egypt in 1923.

First, after his return to Cairo, Bayyumi was involved in the production of the feature film In the Country of Tutankhamun ( Fi Bilad Tut 'Ankh Amun ) as cameraman for the Italian director Victor Rosito . After that, he became the most prolific Egyptian film pioneer. In the same year he opened his film studio Amonfilm and made several short documentaries for his project for an Egyptian newsreel. His first film documentary of an important event was on September 18, 1923, a three-minute film of the triumphant return of Saad Zaghlul from forced exile in the Seychelles .

Play media file

Barsum is looking for a job , 1923

Barsum is looking for a job : Sheikh Metwalli (the Christian Bishara Wakim ), Barsum (the Muslim Abdel Hamid Zaki ) and the banker ( Victor Cohen )

Shortly thereafter, Bayyumi produced the 15-minute comedy Barsum sucht ein Arbeit with actors Bishara Wakim, Abdel Hamid Zaki and Victor Cohen . The film is an important testimony to the times because it reflects the attitude that was widespread at the time of the revolution of 1919 that Egyptian nationalism unites people across the borders of religious communities. Bayyumi, who shared this view, played the main Muslim role with the Copt Bishara Wakim, while the Muslim Abdel Hamid Zaki played a Copt. Barsum sucht ein Arbeit was first performed in December 1923 . In the same month Bayyumis son died at the age of two years at the diphtheria . Bayoum responded to the stroke of fate by immersing himself in his work.

In January 1924 he turned The Chief Secretary ( al-Bash Katib ), an adaptation of the popular play of the same name with Amin Atallah as the main actor and his theater company in the other roles. The film was partly made conventionally in the studio and partly filmed during a stage performance. This spectacle was at Charley's Aunt ( Charley's Aunt ), ajar, a travesty comedy by Brandon Thomas from 1892 In the course of the year Bayyumi moved his studio temporarily to Tanta and then to Cairo, but he turned a few documentaries.

In 1925, the Egyptian businessman Talaat Harb , who had founded Banque Misr as early as 1920 , engaged Bayyumi to produce a film to document the work on the construction of the monumental headquarters of Banque Misr in Cairo. Later, and on the advice of Bayyumi, Talaat Harb founded the Misr Company for Acting and Cinema ( Sharikat Misr li-l-sinima wa al-tamthil ) with 15,000 Egyptian pounds from his bank's funds . The company was supposed to produce advertising and information films. It hired Bayyumi as a director and bought all of its equipment. Bayyumi, Harb and other employees went on a European trip to equip the company with the latest technology. During the trip, Bayyumi decided to stay in Vienna for a longer period in order to continue his education there.

After returning to Egypt, Bayyumi only made a few short documentaries. In 1929 there was a dispute with Talaat Harb, in which a non-kept promise about a percentage profit sharing for Bayyumi should have played a role. Bayyumi left the Misr Company for Acting and Cinema to return to work as an independent filmmaker. Misr Studios, headed by Talaat Harb, emerged from the Misr Company for Acting and Cinema in 1935.

After separating from Talaat Harb, Bayyumi went to Alexandria and initially ran a shop that specialized in photography and repairing cameras. In 1932 he founded the Egyptian Film Institute as a first attempt to set up a training center for filmmakers in Egypt. He offered free courses in zincography , photography, and film production. The first and only film project realized in this institute was the film Fiancé No. 13 ( al-Khatib Nimrah Talatach ), in which Bayyumi appeared as a screenwriter, director, producer, cameraman (with self-made equipment) and actor. His daughter Dawlat Bayyumi also played a role.

Fiancé No. 13 was not a commercial success, however. The following year the institute had to close, probably due to financial problems. Bayyumi made the last film in 1934 to document a meeting of the Upper Egypt Club in Alexandria and then ended his film career.

In 1937, King Faruq allowed the Egyptian Army reservists, who had been retired from British Command, to return to active service. Bayyumi accepted the offer, but turned his back on the army in 1941, disappointed by the corruption among his own officers. He volunteered in the Palestine War in 1948 and in 1956 during the Suez Crisis .

In the decades after his retirement from the film business, Bayyumi made repeated attempts to gain a foothold in the technical field or with a film studio. He was unsuccessful with that. In 1956 he visited Europe one last time, in Jena the VEB Carl Zeiss Jena and in Frankfurt am Main the Adox plants. In the following years, Bayyumi devoted himself to painting and color photography, using the knowledge he had acquired on the last trip to carry out the entire production process for his color photographs himself.

Bayyumi had lost all of his fortune to the nationalization of the banks. He died impoverished in a hospital in Alexandria in July 1963. He left behind his wife Charlotte, daughter Dawlat and several grandchildren. It was not until 1987 that the Egyptian film director Mohammad Kamel El-Kalyubi began researching Bayyumi. He published a book, the 1991 documentary Chronicle of the Lost Time: Muhammad Bayyumi ( Waqa'i 'al-Zaman al-Dha'i': Muhammad Bayyumi ) about the life and work of Bayyumi, and in 1994 a documentary about his films.

Filmography

Works by Bayyumi (selection)

1923: In the Country of Tutankhamun ( Fi bilad Tout Ankh Amon , camera)
1923: The reception of Saad Zaghloul ( The Amon Newsreel , documentary)
1923: Barsum is looking for a job ( Barsoum Looking for a Job , برسوم يبحث عن وظيفة , screenplay and direction)
1924: The Chief Secretary ( al-Bashkatib , director)
1924: The opening of Tutankhamon's tomb ( The Amon Newsreel , documentary)
1933: Fiancé No. 13 ( Al-khatib nimrah talatach , production, screenplay, direction, camera and actor)
1934: The Upper Egypt Club in Alexandria (Documentation)

Films about Muhammad Bayyumi

Mohamed Bayoumi. Chronicles of Forgotten Times . Documentary play by Mohammad Kamel El-Kalyubi, 1991
Films of the Pioneer Mohamed Bayoumi . Documentation by Mohammad Kamel El-Kalyubi, 1994.

literature

Mohammad Kamel El-Kalyubi: Mohamed Bayoumi. The First Pioneer of Egyptian Cinema . Academy of Arts, Cairo 1994
Viola Shafik: Egyptian cinema . In: Oliver Leaman (ed.): Companion Encyclopedia of Middle Eastern and North African Film . Routledge, London and New York 2001, ISBN 0-203-42649-5 , pp. 23-129

Web links

Commons : Mohamed Bayoumi - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g Mohammed Bayoumi: Mohamed Bayoumi (1894-1963) , website Alex Cinema , 2006, accessed January 31, 2019.
↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d The Films of Mohamed Bayoumi , National Performance Network website , November 17, 2017, PDF, 585 KB , accessed January 30, 2019.
↑ ^a ^b Gerhard Höpp : Film directors and film technicians in Berlin , unpublished book chapter from the estate, website of the Leibniz Center Moderner Orient , accessed on January 31, 2019.
^ ^A ^b Roy Armes: Dictionary of African Filmmakers . Indiana University Press, Bloomington and Indianapolis 2008, ISBN 978-0-253-35116-6 , p. 41, Lemma Bayoumi, Mohamed .
↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f Viola Shafik: Egyptian cinema , pp. 92-93.
↑ Viola Shafik: Egyptian cinema , p. 72.
↑ Amal Elgamal: Cinema and its image . In: Contemporary Arab Affairs , 2014, Volume 7, No. 2, pp. 225–245, doi : 10.1080 / 17550912.2014.918320 .
↑ Viola Shafik: Egyptian cinema , p. 24.
↑ ^a ^b ^c Viola Shafik: Egyptian cinema , pp. 37-38.
^ Roy Armes: Dictionary of African Filmmakers . Indiana University Press, Bloomington and Indianapolis 2008, ISBN 978-0-253-35116-6 , p. 28, Lemma Al-Kalioubi, Mohamed Kamal .
↑ Viola Shafik: Egyptian cinema , p. 73.

personal data
SURNAME	Bayyumi, Muhammad
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Bayumi, Muhammad (other transcription); Bayoumi, Muhammad (other transcription)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	Egyptian film director, producer, cameraman and actor of the silent movie era
DATE OF BIRTH	January 3, 1894
PLACE OF BIRTH	Aunt
DATE OF DEATH	July 15, 1963
Place of death	Alexandria

[Alex-1] ↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g Mohammed Bayoumi: Mohamed Bayoumi (1894-1963) , website Alex Cinema , 2006, accessed January 31, 2019.

[NPN-2] The Films of Mohamed Bayoumi , National Performance Network website , November 17, 2017, PDF, 585 KB , accessed January 30, 2019.

[Hoepp-3] Gerhard Höpp : Film directors and film technicians in Berlin , unpublished book chapter from the estate, website of the Leibniz Center Moderner Orient , accessed on January 31, 2019.

[Armes-4] A ^b Roy Armes: Dictionary of African Filmmakers . Indiana University Press, Bloomington and Indianapolis 2008, ISBN 978-0-253-35116-6 , p. 41, Lemma Bayoumi, Mohamed .

[Shafik_92-5] ↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f Viola Shafik: Egyptian cinema , pp. 92-93.

[6] Viola Shafik: Egyptian cinema , p. 72.

[7] Amal Elgamal: Cinema and its image . In: Contemporary Arab Affairs , 2014, Volume 7, No. 2, pp. 225–245, doi : 10.1080 / 17550912.2014.918320 .

[8] Viola Shafik: Egyptian cinema , p. 24.

[Shafik_37-9] Viola Shafik: Egyptian cinema , pp. 37-38.

[10] Roy Armes: Dictionary of African Filmmakers . Indiana University Press, Bloomington and Indianapolis 2008, ISBN 978-0-253-35116-6 , p. 28, Lemma Al-Kalioubi, Mohamed Kamal .

[11] Viola Shafik: Egyptian cinema , p. 73.