In many cases, a film is produced about an important historical event, and a great effort is made in it, and a lot of money is spent on it, but it remains imprisoned without showing for a variety of reasons.. This is what happened to the Egyptian movie “The Wall of Championships”, directed by Mohamed Rady, and produced by the Production Sector Company in In 1999, starring Mahmoud Yassin, Farouk Al-Fishawy, Ahmed Badir, Khaled Al-Nabawy, Hanan Turk, Aida Abdel Aziz, Nada Bassiouni, Maha Ahmed, Samira Mohsen, and others.
The film deals, in a dramatic form, with the period of the War of Attrition, the role of the Egyptian Air Defense Forces, and the development processes of these forces through the intertwined human relations of the soldiers and officers involved in the development.
The Egyptian critic and screenwriter Mustafa Muharram discussed the story of the production of this film in the fifth part of his book “My Life in the Cinema.” He told us that the one who wrote his story was Field Marshal Muhammad Ali Fahmy and his assistant Brigadier General Ibrahim Rashad, who were witnesses to its events from their position of responsibility in the Air Defense Forces. And because they are military men and not writers, the film script contained many details that no film could absorb, hence Mustafa Muharram was asked to rewrite the script and turn that historical and military material into an enjoyable and creative cinematic work.
Muharram did what was required of him perfectly, and was able to shorten 500 pages in a smaller number of pages, by deleting some repetitive events, unnecessary details, and technical treatments. In turn, director Mohamed Rady secured the necessary support from the armed forces, and obtained permission from them to allow technicians to photograph missile platforms, weapons and aircraft, and to enter military facilities.
Muharram says that after the filming and montage ended, the director showed a copy of the work to the leaders of the Air Defense Force, and they did not express any objection, but the director of moral affairs in the army, after watching the film, informed the commander of the armed forces and the chief of staff that the film attributed victory October 1973 for the Air Defense Force, not for the first air strike led by President Hosni Mubarak.
As is common practice, and that the agreement of army officials to show the film to the public may expose them to accountability and punishment. Muharram adds, “It seems that the Minister of Information at the time, Safwat al-Sharif, knew about the matter, because of the Radio and Television Union’s contribution to the production of the film. He realized that showing it would cause him a lot of trouble with President Mubarak, so he preferred safety, and decided to save the film.”
Later, it turned out that the predictions about the president’s anger at the movie were correct. This happened when Adel Hosni (film production partner) was in Paris with President Mubarak’s official visit to France. From that moment, Adel Hosni understood that the movie “The Wall of Championships” would not be shown commercially.
Muharram says that in order to avoid losing them, the film’s producer and director tried to solve the problem by injecting the film with some scenes that show the role of the Air Force in the October victory, and other scenes in which President Mubarak appears in flight uniforms, but their attempts were unsuccessful.
Thus, the film did not see the light until after the end of Mubarak’s rule, when director Mohamed Radi and production partner Adel Hosni re-presented a copy of the film to the leaders of the armed forces and the new Minister of Information, and they agreed to show it in cinemas, and thus the movie Made was released in 2014. In 1999, after being banned from the show for 13 years.
