''All My Life'' ( arz, طول عمري; translit. ''Toul Omry''; french: Toute ma vie), is a 2008

Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Medit ...

ian film by Maher Sabry. It is noted as being the first film to handle the subject of male

homosexuality Homosexuality is romantic attraction, sexual attraction, or sexual behavior between members of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality is "an enduring pattern of emotional, romantic, and/or sexual attractions" to pe ...

and the status of homosexuals in

. While a work of fiction, Sabry made efforts to use real-life influences from his own experiences to the 2001 arrests of the Cairo 52 to keep the portrayal of conditions for homosexuals in Egypt accurate.

Plot

The film's plot revolves around the life of Rami, a 26-year-old homosexual, his life in Cairo, and his experiences with his friends and neighbors.

Cast and characters

*Mazen Nassar as Rami - a gay dance student in Cairo *Ayman as Walid - Rami's lover who leaves him to marry a woman *Jwana as Dalia - Rami's friend, a student who plans to study abroad to escape the conservative atmosphere in Egypt *Louay as Kareem - Rami's friend, a doctor active in the underground gay scene *Julian Gonzalez Esparza as Ahmad - Rami's neighbor, a devout Muslim man with an inconvenient passion for women *Mehammed Amadeus as Mina - Rami's teenage neighbor who lives a closeted life under his strict Christian mother's roof *Maged as Atef - a poor waiter who becomes a love interest to Rami Other actors *Janaan Attia ... Nurse Latifa *Munir Bayyari ... Hany *Monica Berini ... Office Worker *Travis Creston ... Tourist *Habeeb El-Deb ... Prosecutor *Youssef El-Shareif ... Ashraf *Sarah Enany ... Nurse Safaa / Opera Singer *Hala Fauzi ... Belly Dancer *Bassam Kassab ... Hatem *Ayman Kozman ... Policeman *Nabila Mango ... Mina's mother *Jamal Mavrikios ... Mazen's colleague *Amar Puri ... Amar *Mykha Ram ... Mostafa *Ashraf Sewailam ... Rami (voice) *Wedad ... Khadra *Christopher White ... Mark *Hesham El-Tahawi ... TV actor one *Naglaa Younis ... TV actress two *Seham Saneya Adelsalam ... TV actress three

Release

The film premiered at Frameline in

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...

in June 2008.

Reactions

While previously in Egyptian film, gay characters had visibility in general in minor roles, as in '' The Bathhouse of Malatily'' (1973), '' Alexandria … Why?'' (1978), '' Mendiants et Orgueilleux'' (1991), '' Marcides'' (1993) and, recently, ''The Yacoubian Building'' (2007), ''All My Life'' was the first all-gay film to be released. Sheikh Nasr Faryd Wasel, ex-Mufti of Egypt, called for the destruction of the film, stating "these films are the gateway to debauchery, to committing that forbidden by Allah and propagate deviant social behaviors". Though he expressed desire for the film to be suppressed and held from film festivals, it was screened at various film festivals around the world in such cities as

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

Athens Athens ( ; el, Αθήνα, Athína ; grc, Ἀθῆναι, Athênai (pl.) ) is both the capital and largest city of Greece. With a population close to four million, it is also the seventh largest city in the European Union. Athens dominates ...

Melbourne Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a met ...

Sydney Sydney ( ) is the capital city of the state of New South Wales, and the most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Sydney Harbour and extends about towards the Blue Mountain ...

Bangalore Bangalore (), officially Bengaluru (), is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of Karnataka. It has a population of more than and a metropolitan population of around , making it the third most populous city and fifth most ...

and

Ljubljana Ljubljana (also known by other historical names) is the capital and largest city of Slovenia. It is the country's cultural, educational, economic, political and administrative center. During antiquity, a Roman city called Emona stood in the ar ...

. Dr. Zeyn il-Abedyn, Egypt's Anti-AIDS Program Director, said that the film was "a painful blow to all our efforts to combat the spread of HIV." In an interview with Arabiya.net, he stated that "Unnatural sexual practices are second only to blood transfusions as probable causes for infection with this disease", which the Egyptian Underground Film society replied is a "clear implication that HIV/AIDS only infect male homosexuals." The EUFS continued, stating: "By implying this, he completely ignores scientific fact; statistics have shown that AIDS is also widespread among heterosexuals and children. Instead of raising public awareness about

safe sex Safe sex is sexual activity using methods or contraceptive devices (such as condoms) to reduce the risk of transmitting or acquiring sexually transmitted infections (STIs), especially HIV. "Safe sex" is also sometimes referred to as safer se ...

, such statements are misleading and create a false sense of security; they create a popular belief that HIV/AIDS only infects a certain class of people, leading to the illusion of safety which, in turn, leads to the spread of the disease." Regarding responses of conservative Muslim figures, Maher Sabry said "I’m not surprised that this happened. It was expected, yet it’s still painful to me, because it’s an indication of just how backward we’ve become. We’re now living in an age of cultural regression, an age where dissidents, presidential candidates and religious minorities are thrown into jail. We claim to be emulating Islamic civilization; but if the people who built that civilization were alive today, there would have been

fatwa A fatwā ( ; ar, فتوى; plural ''fatāwā'' ) is a legal ruling on a point of Islamic law (''sharia'') given by a qualified '' Faqih'' (Islamic jurist) in response to a question posed by a private individual, judge or government. A jurist i ...

s pronounced against them, and their books and other works would have been burned."

Awards

In 2011, ''All My Life'' earned the

Audience Award An audience award is typically an award at a film festival (or some other type of cultural festival or similar competition) which is selected by the audience attending the festival, rather than by the festival jury or a group of critics. Example ...

in the category of Narrative Feature at the 7th FACE à FACE film festival. The festival is based in

St Etienne ST, St, or St. may refer to: Arts and entertainment * Stanza, in poetry * Suicidal Tendencies, an American heavy metal/hardcore punk band * Star Trek, a science-fiction media franchise * Summa Theologica, a compendium of Catholic philosophy an ...

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

, with the mission to promote positive attitudes towards

through

art Art is a diverse range of human activity, and resulting product, that involves creative or imaginative talent expressive of technical proficiency, beauty, emotional power, or conceptual ideas. There is no generally agreed definition of wha ...

and

culture Culture () is an umbrella term which encompasses the social behavior, institutions, and norms found in human societies, as well as the knowledge, beliefs, arts, laws, customs, capabilities, and habits of the individuals in these groups.Tyl ...

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:All My Life (Film) 2000s Arabic-language films Egyptian LGBT-related films LGBT-related drama films 2008 LGBT-related films Gay-related films Egyptian drama films