Film on Egyptian Jews blocked before its release

 Amir Ramses, director of the film: 'shocked'

The Egyptian authorities have sunk to new levels of cowardice by refusing 'Jews of Egypt', Amir Ramses's new film, a licence to go on general release. The Times of Israel reports: (with thanks Michelle)
 
CAIRO (AP) — Egyptian security agencies have stopped the screening of a documentary on the Egyptian Jewish community a day before it was due to debut in local cinemas, the film producer said in a statement Tuesday.

He said no reasons were given.

The “Jews of Egypt“, a documentary that follows the lives of the Egyptian Jewish community in the first half of the 20th century until they left under duress in large numbers in the late 1950s, was screened in Egypt last year in a private film festival and had been approved by censorship, a regular procedure in Egypt.

Trailer for the film 'Jews of Egypt'

 Film producer Haytham el-Khamissy said he heard from the chief of the censorship authority that a security agency asked to view the movie before granting it a license to be shown in theaters.

“I was shocked when he told me this and when I learned that this had already happened” before the 2012 festival screening, el-Khamissy said in a statement posted on the film’s official Facebook page.

“There is no excuse for this except delay and obstruction,” he said. “I announce the delay of the screening of ‘Jews of Egypt’ until a solution is found for this inexplicable problem, inherited from long years in the parlors of the Egyptian state securities and which aim to terrorize thought and repress creativity.”

Under the former regime of autocratic leader Hosni Mubarak, security authorities kept a tight lid on discussions of religion and minority groups, occasionally banning books or rejecting movie scripts that dealt with such issues.

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Egypt bans film about Jewish community (The Guardian)

Film on Egyptian Jews to be released 

Film on Egyptian Jews causes uproar