The second part of the triptych “Regard sur le cinéma musical arabe” (a look at Arab musical cinema), Samia forever pays a resounding tribute to the woman who, for more than twenty years, was the “Marilyn Monroe” of Egyptian musicals. Between film extracts, archives and testimonies, the film traces the life of Samia Gamal (1924-1994) who, by becoming a cinema legend, established herself as one of the icons of Oriental dance. “Perhaps dance was innate in me”, she said. And so it had to be to dedicate one’s life to that art as, while Oriental dance (“raqs al-sharqui”) is a cultural phenomenon as old as it is indisputable, Egyptian society has always stigmatised its dancers.

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