Fadi al-Lawand: Back to Egypt
by Sherif Awad
With the start of the Egyptian film industry during
the early days of the 20th century, Cairo became a new Mecca for
Arab artists, musicians and cineastes where they launched their career and
gained their stardom. One of those artist is Fadi al-Lawand whose late father
Shaaban al-Lawand was a multidisciplinary artist working as songwriter, painter
and calligrapher.
Nicknamed Sheikh of artists in Lebanese media, Shaaban
al-Lawand moved to Kuwait where his son Fadi was born then to Cairo where the
family lived for thirty years. The father was renowned in the Egyptian cinema
industry being the painter of posters and artworks of films on billboards and
cinema theaters. He also designed album covers for cassettes released by Morris
Iskander’s Morriphone, the music company responsible for early albums by the
Tunisian Latifa, the Moroccan Samira Said, the Algerian Warda and the Saudi
Talal al-Madah.
“In Cairo, I lived
in Dokki for thirteen years”, remembered Fadi. “I was a student at the very well-known
al-Orman School. All my childhood’s memories across Egypt are still kept in my
mind and my heart”.
Since he was five
years old, Fadi was influenced by his father’s practice being related to the film
industry which allowed the son to meet actors like Mahmoud Yassin and his wife
Shahira, actress Isaad Younes during her early career and veteran film and TV director
Tayseer Abood. “During the seventies, I was fascinated by Egyptian theater
specially comedies made by Mohamed Sobhy like the popular play al-Joker”,
explained Fadi. “At school, I was the best child actor, either performing or
imitating famous artists. However, in the late eighties, our family returned to
Beirut. There were difficult times during the Civil War going on in Lebanon. We
needed to go back because my father could not renovate his Egyptian residency visa
anymore”
In Beirut, Fadi
ventured into acting as a professional when he was only fourteen years old. My
first experience was on The Piccadilly Theatre at Hamra Street with the late
actor Ibrahim Maraachli co-starring in a comic play called Ibrahim Effendi
and the 40 Thieves. The following acting experiences came with another
iconic comedian Mahmoud Mabsot who was famous performing the comic character
Fahman which he played for several years. “Growing up, I studied arts at the
Lebanese university while appearing in several Lebanese serials on LBC, Future
and many TV stations”, he says. “Later, starting from the year 2000, I was
travelling across the Arab world performing plays I also wrote and directed at Arab
theatrical festivals in Muscat, Jerash and Doha .
Four years later,
the family decided to move again. This time, Fadi, his wife and his father Shaaban
al-Lawand were relocated in Belgium. “Arriving in Europe, it was difficult to
continue in the art field during my first years”, remembered Fadi who spent
quite a time working and finalizing European residency paper-works for himself
and the whole family.
“I returned to the
Middle East artistic scene when I was invited as jury member of the short film
competition at the 2014’s Muscat film festival along with Egyptian star Nabila
Ebeid as jury president. Many Egyptian celebrities were there and so I was very
happy to reconnect again”, he remembers,
Fadi eventually came
back to Egypt this year after two decades of absence. It was in Aswan
International Women Film Festival whose organizers invited him among many other
international celebrities. “I became the festival’s representative in Europe
after meeting its president Mohamed Abd el-Khalek and its directed Hassan Abou
el-Ela at Malmo Arab Film Festival last year”, explained Fadi. “I wanted to do
anything for Egypt, a country I adore and so I started to contact European
media and artists to invite them to Aswan to promote the newborn festival and
Egypt. After attending the first edition that took place last February, I can
say that Aswan festival has a great potential in promoting tourism and culture
specially in the Upper-Egyptian region. Egyptians have a great way in welcoming
foreigners and communicating with other cultures. This is why visitors who came
like to return.
Back to Flanders,
Fadi succeeded to establish EMIEA. “The name stands for Espace Mondiale
d’Interculture Euro-Afrique, or the World Space for Intercultural Euro-African”,
explains Fadi. “It is a new association that will venture into organizing a new
African-European festival and many other artistic events to withstand the
dialogue between Europe and Africa. On the other hand, I hope to finalizing
several coproduction deals between Egyptian film companies and their European
counterparts to release quality feature films un the near future.
