A forced marriage, a prisoner groom, and terrorists with a better plan B than you.
A Mamluk Sultan wants to wed his niece, Princess Najma, to his heir Antar, but the princess refuses so the Sultan forces her to marry the young prisoner, Hilal. When a terrorist plot to kill Prince Antar fails, the terrorists decide to use Hilal to get to Antar.
Direction
Badrakhan's staging of power dynamics in cramped palace spaces.
Production
1930s Egyptian studio craft—opulent sets, zero budget waste.
Acting
Nagat Ali's defiant stillness against forced compliance.
Director
Ahmad Badrakhan
Nagat Ali
نجمه
Abd El Ghany El Sayed
هلال عادلمان
Fouad Shafiq
السلطان / أبو العلا
Ibrahim Emara
السلطان عادلمان
Nina Zaky
Nessim Nada
القائد الاول
Abdul Latif Jamjoom
شيبوب
Yahya Najati
الممثل المسرحى
Abdel Fattah Al-Qosari
الأمير عنتر
Safa El Gamil
مهراشا السلطان
Sophie Dimitri
الساحرة
Beba Ibrahim
راقصة
Philip Kamal
رئيس المحكمة
Said Khalil
الشاهد
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
1938 Egyptian cinema was obsessed with Mamluk history as allegory for British colonial presence—this Sultan's tyranny reads differently knowing the audience.
Badrakhan shot this during his peak productivity year; he directed four features in 1938 alone, all now considered foundational Arab cinema.
EG
