Director of “Balto” Aims to Establish His Own Identity Apart from the Legacy of His Grandfather, Fouad Al-Mohandes – Exclusive Interview

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Since 2013, he has worked in many films and dramas, except for the series “Balto” It is his first directorial experience in drama away from advertisements and his work as an assistant director. Omar Al-Mohandes confirmed in his interview with Al-Arabiya.net that his first experience through comedy work is one of the most difficult things, indicating that laughter is not an easy task to reach people, but rather it was not He imagines that his first experience in the series will be comic, but the details of the work encouraged him to experiment in its entirety, as he revealed many scenes of the work that achieved great success with the audience and led the trend for a long time with the presentation of his first episode.

* How did you find your experience with the series “Balto” as your first directing experience?

I was very happy with this experience, because I did not expect all the reactions to this work after the first two episodes, and I began to feel anxious and tense because of the audience’s attachment to the series, and I became anticipating their reaction after showing the new episodes, which was what was making me very nervous, as the series is unique, as it is a social and satirical comic And the public misses this region very much, as it is not easy to have the ability to make the Egyptian public laugh, so we presented this work in a simple way to make it easier for the viewer to receive messages to the world of doctors and health units, through realistic and comic social events “without regret.”

* And what are the reasons for your insistence that Issam Omar star in the work?

Since the preparations, I have seen in front of my eyes only Issam Omar to present the starring role, as I have cooperated with him more than once and met him for the first time in casting the second part of the movie “Al Jazeera”, and I fully realized his artistic abilities, at that time I was the assistant director Sherif Arafa, from whom I learned the origins profession, then I collaborated with him during an episode in the series “Tamer and Shawqiyya”, and I also chose him to present the role of the hero in my short film “New Year’s Eve”, after which we presented together sketches of “What If?” On YouTube, I believe very much in his talent, as he is very spontaneous and enjoys wit, and I know his capabilities because he is a theatrical actor, as well as the rest of the actors such as Maryam Al-Jundi and Sulafa Ghanem, and when the opportunity came, I did not find a better one than them for this experience, so before assigning “Balto” to him, there was an actor The last candidate for the starring role, but he was not enthusiastic about the work and apologized for it.

Backstage at Alto

How were the preparations you made for this work?

Preparation sessions brought me together with the author, Ahmed Atef Fayyad, to develop the idea and provide details in a different way about the stories written in the novel. And conflicts, good preparation made the work appear well to the public.

Therefore, we were aware and well-studied of all the details of the subject during the filming, so there was no room for laughter behind the scenes except in the case of some surprises from a star such as the artist Mohamed Mahmoud, who always surprised us with his improvisations, so we were taking the matter very seriously, as if we were going to a health unit. True, the truth is that from the beginning we outlined and then let ourselves see where we were going during the shoot.

* From your point of view, what are the reasons that made the series achieve such success?

The presence of new people and rural scenes that we presented in an unconventional way. We were dealing with the series as if it were a movie, so the longest scene we had was 3 pages of 3 minutes on the screen, given that we are presenting a quick series, and thank God we did not go through what the Ramadan series go through, and we finished filming the episodes early. In addition to the enthusiasm that produced us as young people without any interference on the technical level, and giving us complete freedom in choices along with other support at all levels, which helped in all of our success and work with the utmost diligence and sincerity.

Why did you choose directing over acting?

The matter has been related to me since I was in school, so I was running away from the projects that I was assigned to present a movie, and people began to accept the matter, and I felt that I was able to present a story, but without appearing in front of the camera, and I used my friends to act, and I was raised on a very large library with my parents. Full of plays and films by Professor Fouad Al-Mohandes, my grandfather, and other foreign works. I was brought up in an original artistic house, and art surrounded me from all sides, and this affected me and my upbringing in general.

* Were you not afraid of the idea of ​​linking your name to your grandfather, the great artist Fouad Al-Mohandes?

This matter placed a great responsibility on me and also made me proud of it, and if I put this matter in my mind, I will not be able to offer anything, because I and my grandfather are two different entities. Light, I am trying to present something of my own, because I am still in the beginning, and I am happy that people were surprised that I am the grandson of the late artist Fouad Al-Mohandes, although I was keen that they not know that, because I wanted to succeed far from his great name.

I also worked a lot of my work as an assistant with the great director Sherif Arafa, and I learned a lot from him. I loved cinema through his work, and I learned from him the specifications of directing, good focus in the editing stages, and the method of resolving crises in the setting, as he is the best person to deal with problems in filming.

* What difficulties did you encounter in the implementation of “Balto”?

We started working on the script in February 2022, and filming began at the end of last July, after preparing the filming location and all the details, and the series was filmed in 29 days, and it was completed last October, and preparing the episodes took about two more months, so the post-writing stage was easy, But the difficulty was with the first preparation, writing the characters and linking them, especially since the filming was in Cairo.

* What are your artworks in the coming period?

I’m preparing for a new movie, but I can’t reveal its details right now.

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