Egyptian filmmaker dies

Renowned Egyptian filmmaker Husam El-Din Mustafa died on Tuesday morning in Cairo from a heart attack during his sleep. He was 64 years old.

The Egyptian filmmaker gave the Egyptian cinema industry more than 100 films, many of which won prizes and awards in local and foreign cinema film festivals.

Among his remarkable films are al-Ikhwa al-Adda, al-Shahhat (The Beggar); al-Samman and al-Kharif (The Grocer and Autumn), and al-Sheitan (The Satan). Following his recent film, "Hikmat Fahemi," six years ago he changed his style to producing historical series for Egyptian television, considering this change as connected to his political stances and intellectual vision.

Since 1994, every month of Ramadan Mustafa would have a new historical series on Arab television.

His death came while he was still working on the second part of the Nesr al-Sharq (Falcon of the East) series which was supposed to be seen next Ramadan.

Among his best series are al-Fursan (The Knights) which speaks about Arab heroism in confronting the Moguls and al-Abtal (Heroes), which also speaks about the French campaign against Egypt and its defeat at the hands of the Egyptians.