El Leila El Kebira: The Iconic Puppet Operetta Becomes a Full-Feature Animation and the Trailer is Magic!
Sixty years after the greatest Egyptian and Arab operetta recorded in history came to life, a group of young Egyptians working under “Giraffics Studio” are reviving “The Grand Night” with an animated movie. The trailer of the much-anticipated movie was just released, and it appears that all the promises that the movie will be of international standards will be fulfilled.
The folkloric masterpiece of Salah Jaheen, Sayed Mekawy, Salah El Saqqa, and Naji Shaker will come to life again with mind-blowing standards as the producers of the movie learned and consulted leading figures from the animation industry, like Max Howard, the former president of Warner Brothers and studio executive of Disney’s The Lion King.
The producers of “The Grand Night”, Ahmed Hammouda and Abdulrahman Khedr, also met Ed Hooks, who is the author of “Acting for Animators” and one of the world’s primary animation references, and Maggie Malone, who’s a creative executive at Disney where she participated in movies such as “Big Hero 6”, “Moana”, “Frozen”, and “Wreck It Ralph”.
The film revolves around a little girl, Laila, and her passion for her grandfather’s stories. After being bullied by her schoolmates, Laila escapes to a fictional world through the Bioscope, where she finds herself surrounded by her favorite characters from “The Grand Night” , but she will have to confront a villain, Ommena El Ghoula, to save her story and return to her home.
The journey of visual development took two years and the participation of more than 40 Egyptian artists. Currently, the film is in the final stages of development and production is scheduled to begin early next year, with its release scheduled for the end of 2022.
“Like every other modern child, I grew up watching ‘Toy Story’, ‘Lion King’ and Mickey Magazine. Walt Disney was a genius storyteller, but so was my Grandfather. And as a child I wondered, how come I never get to watch his stories on screen? Or any other stories that carry the same essence? Today I am honored to be leading the first cornerstone story of many stories to come. Stories from Egypt, Stories from Africa. Voices from the land of stories to reach all the lands,” said Hamouda at the film screening in Annecy.
