Oscars: Egypt Selects Abu Bakr Shawky’s ‘The Stories’ for International Feature Race

Oscars: Egypt Selects Abu Bakr Shawky’s ‘The Stories’ for International Feature Race

Abu Bakr Shawky’s drama “The Stories” — which is inspired by how the director’s Egyptian father and Austrian mother began their love affair as pen pals — has been selected as Egypt’s entry for the Academy Award for best international feature film. When Shawky’s father Ahmed was an aspiring pianist in Cairo in 1967, he became pen-pals with a young Austrian woman named Liz, who is Shawky’s mother. The film spans from the late ’60s to the ’80s, an…

Oscars: Egypt Selects ‘The Stories’ For Best International Film Entry

Egypt has selected Abu Bakr Shawky drama The Stories as its entry to the Best International Feature Film category of the 99th Academy Awards. Unfolding against the backdrop of Egypt’s turbulent years from the late 1960s until the 1980s, British-Egyptian actor Amir El-Masry (Giant, MobLand) stars as an aspiring Egyptian concert pianist opposite Valerie Pachner (Four Minus Three) as an Austrian girl he connects with in 1967 via a pen pal scheme. …