Le portrait de l’homme d’affaires qui est à l’origine des manifestations en Égypte, un portrait tout en nuances du meilleur site d’information du pays.
Money and image : Framing Mohamed Ali’s face off against Sisi | MadaMasr
▻https://madamasr.com/en/2019/09/24/feature/politics/money-and-image-framing-mohamed-alis-face-off-against-sisi
Before September 2, 2019, Mohamed Ali was an aspiring actor and minor celebrity. He looks a bit like actor Asser Yassin, loves horseback riding like Ahmed Elsaka, and is fond of being photographed with his luxury automobiles like Mohamed Ramadan.
Asser Yassine
Ahmed Elsaka
Mohamed Ramadan
But none of that made him leading man material. When he took a gamble and produced a star vehicle for himself — Elbar El Tani (Other Land, 2016) — it lost LE27 million, and he gave it to television networks for free. No one remembers it.
But on September 2, he would suddenly step into the limelight, marking a clear break between everything he accomplished before that date and everything that would come after — without spending LE27 million or enlisting the services of a director or film editor, or even a professional camera. He uploaded a video on his personal Facebook page demanding his money: LE220 million owed to him by the state for contracting services he had rendered on construction projects. Other videos followed. Titled “Exposing corruption among the military elite and the head of the Egyptian state,” the videos offered a detailed account of the extravagant spending he personally witnessed after being hired to implement the projects.