To describe Umm Kulthum is to attempt the impossible — her voice, instantly recognisable and emotionally boundless, captivated presidents, poets, and ordinary listeners alike.
Revered from Cairo to Casablanca and adored even by those who could not understand a single Arabic word, she became the sound of a century: a cultural force whose monthly concerts stopped traffic, united nations, and carved her into the collective memory of the Arab world.
The girl from the small village of Simballawayn — a Sheikh's daughter who sang at weddings from the age of five, often dressed as a boy and accompanied by her father and brother Khaled — was essentially born onstage, and now her legend is being reimagined on screen.
Egyptian filmmaker Marwan Hamed brings Umm Kulthum to life in El Sett, a major new cinematic tribute which had its world premiere at the Marrakech International Film Festival.
Starring Mona Zaki as Umm Kulthum, El Sett invites us to look beyond the icon.
What do we truly know about her inner journey, her heritage, and the forces that shaped the woman behind the unmatched voice?
The film steps into that unexplored space, offering a deeper, more intimate portrait of Umm Kulthum's life beyond fame.
Tackling a biopic is one of cinema's trickiest undertakings, especially when the subject is a world-renowned icon. But it was a challenge Marwan Hamed embraced with confidence.
"I'm a big fan of biographies. I watch a lot of them, and recently, there's been a massive wave of biographies in world cinema. Every year, there are plenty of films about artists, athletes, businessmen, and politicians," Marwan tells The New Arab.
The Egyptian filmmaker launched his career with the award-winning short Lilly before rising to prominence with his Cannes-screened debut The Yacoubian Building.
He has since directed some of Egypt's most celebrated box-office and festival successes, including Ibrahim Labyad, The Blue Elephant films, Diamond Dust, and Kira & El Gin.
"I'm always trying to be diverse in my work, and I like to challenge myself," the director continues.
"I always think, 'How am I going to spend my next few years?' The time I spend making a film is usually three to four years, so these years need to be of value, where I learn something. Sometimes it's not only that I'm making the film, but the film has something to do with me, and I don't believe we could do a film without being obsessed with it, and that was the case here with El Sett."
That obsession led the filmmaker to surround himself with screenwriter Ahmed Mourad and Hanna Mahmud, undertaking extensive research on the iconic singer, who had written a memoir and left some testimony on Egyptian radio, but otherwise, had kept a great deal of her life under wraps.
"I must acknowledge Hanna, whose collaboration was essential to the treatment and adaptation of the film," Marwan continues.
"From the outset, we needed a female voice to help us see what we might not have recognised on our own. That research was so immense, and at the same time it was so diverse and huge, we started kind of creating a puzzle around her character," he adds.
Mona Zaki will star as the legendary singer Umm Kulthum in the biopic film
Press conference with Director Marwan Hamed, Actress Mona Zaki, and Screenwriter Ahmed Mourad [Y. Yassine]
El Sett Gala featuring Producer Mohammed Hafzy, Ahmed Mourad, Mona Zaki, and Marwan Hamed [Rabih Loukili]
Umm Kulthum was a true powerhouse in her own right, but it was not by accident.
The influence she had on Egyptian society and, later, on her entire global audience stemmed from great sacrifices and difficult choices.
Such was the case when she declined to marry her love and songwriter, Ahmed Rami (brilliantly played by Mohammad Farag), fearing their relationship would affect their creativity too early in their promising careers.
Ahmed Rami went on to write over 200 songs for Souma (her nickname) and greatly contributed to making Umm Kulthum 'Kawkab al Sharq' (the Star of the East) that she was.
Voluntarily single and childless in her thirties, despite her humble and traditional origins, shows how much willpower the singer possessed.
"Every prophet, whichever religion they come from, has a light and more sombre aspect to their journey. Weaknesses are what make a story human, and this is what we are after as screenwriters," Ahmed Mourad tells The New Arab.
"Our inspiration came out of the difficult decisions she had to take, so this is what we wanted to materialise in this film, the constant tension and pressures in this woman's life."
Umm Kulthum, whose real name is Fatima Ibrahim as-Sayyid al-Beltagi, remained very close to her father throughout her life — a relationship that is portrayed very well in El Sett and performed by the immaculate Sayed Ragab.
Marwan Hamed's biopic shows how the strong father-daughter bond shaped the influential, opinionated figure the world came to know.
From negotiating a never-before-seen percentage with her record label, to founding and heading the musicians' union in Egypt, to opening her own magazine, where she wrote articles calling on the government to handle internal affairs better, her trajectory stands as one of the most extraordinary in modern Arab cultural history.
"The research allowed us to discover the real character behind the story, and the real person, the powerful person that she was. She made very tough choices for her life. And this is the story that I thought should be told," Marwan explains.
"It's a story for people who don't know or who are trying to find their own voice and fight for it," the director adds.
The film opens with Umm Kulthum's legendary 1967 performance at Paris' Olympia Hall — her only concert in the West, set against a backdrop of Middle Eastern political turmoil.
Paris' legendary theatre is packed with more than 2,000 people from across the world. Ambassadors fill the front rows — and even Charles de Gaulle is rumoured to have been in attendance. On that night, Umm Kulthum's concert became something of an informal international summit.
Bruno Coquatrix, the famed theatre director who had paid Umm Kulthum twice the fee he once offered Edith Piaf, visits her backstage with a plea: "Madame Umm, tensions in the audience are rising. Please calm the room and avoid politics."
Umm Kulthum looks at him and replies in French, "You and I don't speak the same language," before removing her earrings and calling her musicians back from the stage. The show continues — and the night becomes one of the most defining performances in modern music history.
It is no accident that Marwan chose to open the film with this scene.
"This is what I wanted to show, this powerful woman. I didn't want to show only the famous singer. That scene shows power, a lot of power. And then in the next shot, you see this little kid in the village with her father. And you ask yourself, how did this girl become that woman?" Marwan shares when talking about the scene.
"Once you look closely at her journey and what she has achieved, and again, I'm not talking about her musical achievement because that was huge and unmatched, but her unbelievable transformation, this journey of power and being very influential. I don't think we have a lot of people who manage to do that, I mean, public figures. Being that influential in society, to carry her own voice and force it on society."
El Sett traces Umm Kulthum's extraordinary life, from singing in villages along the Bosphorus at age five to her death in Cairo in 1975.
The film explores not only her monumental career but also her personal life, including her rumoured romance with a member of a royal family and her unconventional marriage to the younger doctor Hassan Al Hafnawi, in which they maintained separate homes.
Spanning 2 hours and 40 minutes, the film unfolds on screen with the effortless flow of a lifetime, leaving viewers mesmerised and eager to immerse themselves in her complete body of work, in an attempt to capture even a fraction of her unmatched power and presence.
Leïla Amar is an independent journalist, film critic, and cultural writer with experience covering major film festivals across the Arab world and internationally
Follow her on Instagram: @leila.amar
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