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The Three Disappearances of Soad Hosni is an attempt to tell the story of Soad Hosni, one of Egypt’s most famous film stars who starred in eighty-two feature films between 1959 and 1991. Using the technique of filmic montage, Rania Stephan creates a moving portrait of the iconic actress, in which the rumours surrounding her life and death (she fell from a building on London’s Edgeware Road in 2001) are translated through her image as a projection of the Arab imaginary and its evolution over thirty years. According to Stephan ‘The entire film is made from images and sound taken from Hosni’s films. It is built like a tragedy in three acts that ends in death. The film operates like a kind of pre-vision on the tragic destiny of this actress.’ Stephan’s film is also a celebration of popular Egyptian cinema, historically sidelined by both Arab critics and the West, ‘I wanted to give popular culture its credence, its value.’
Rania Stephan is an artist and filmmaker whose short films, videos and documentaries offer a personal perspective on political events.