MARRAKECH — In a surprise appearance, Tilda Swinton walked the red carpet tonight for the world premiere of Marwan Hamed’s “El Sett” (The Lady) at the 22nd Marrakech International Film Festival. The festival’s first muse, absent from official duties this year and last, made a brief return to support the eagerly anticipated biographical drama about Umm Kulthum, the Arab world’s most iconic singer.
Egyptian star Mona Zaki delivers what may be the performance of her career as the legendary vocalist known as the “fourth pyramid” of Egypt, the result of extraordinary preparation that transformed her both physically and emotionally.
“I was isolating myself completely, even from my family, from people around me, to be able to feel that loneliness—this huge, amazing big talent that has no one around her for real,” Zaki told The Playlist in an exclusive conversation following this morning’s press conference.
For over a year and three months, Zaki trained daily, except on Fridays, working with acting coaches, vocal instructors, and movement specialists to capture Umm Kulthum across multiple decades of her life. “It was not easy because I had a lot of different ages I had to portray,” she explained. “It wasn’t the same in every stage. It was completely different while she was growing up as a village girl, and then going to Cairo and seeing all the cosmopolitan city, trying to prove that she exists.”
The most challenging aspect? Zaki doesn’t have a trained singing voice. “I don’t have a good voice, so it had to be portrayed professionally,” she said, describing moments of frustration during the intensive preparation. Egypt’s blockbuster director Hamed (“The Yacoubian Building,” “Kira & El Gin”) reassured her through doubts, promising that progress would come through “baby steps.”
The film arrives amid considerable anticipation—and scrutiny. When the trailer dropped last week in Egypt, social media erupted with debate over Zaki’s physical resemblance to Umm Kulthum. Egyptian TV host Amr Adib publicly defended the actress, writing on X: “No one has seen the film… No one has seen the performance. Since when must an actor look identical to the historical figure they portray?”
At the press conference following the world premiere, Zaki addressed the controversy directly: “This is the hardest project I’ve worked on, or at least for me in my life. The difficulty lies in the character herself that we present—she’s a huge legend. Without the presence of director Marwan Hamed, I wouldn’t have had the courage to do something like this.”
That loneliness Zaki embraced for the role evolved throughout Umm Kulthum’s life. “She enjoyed the loneliness at a certain time in her age, because she thought that would make her flourish and grow. And how she hated this loneliness at a certain age later on—it was choking her and killing her.”
The film depicts Umm Kulthum navigating Egypt’s male-dominated music industry, a struggle that resonates with contemporary challenges. “It’s ongoing,” Zaki said. “I hear the same complaints from women artists abroad—they do not take the same money as the male artists, and they do not take the same chances.”
Zaki knows this firsthand. Starting her career at 13, she spent years cast as “just the supporter, all the time, for the male actor.” It took “a lot of time” to change that dynamic by refusing roles that didn’t advance women’s stories. “That’s when God just brings you different chances and different things,” she said. “Maybe controversial, maybe not a lot of people like that for women to be free and to speak up. But I will do it forever.”
“El Sett,” written by acclaimed novelist Ahmed Mourad, marks the first major biopic devoted to Umm Kulthum, who recorded some 300 songs over a 60-year career. Born in 1898 in a Nile Delta village, she became the first Arab singer to leverage mass media—radio, phonograph, cinema, and television—to reach millions of fans while disrupting gender norms with her powerful, politically charged music.
Previous portrayals include Egyptian actress Sabrine’s career-defining performance in the 1999 television series “Umm Kulthum,” and Iranian director Shirin Neshat’s 2018 film “Looking for Oum Kulthum,” which premiered at Toronto. In 2020, London’s West End staged the musical “Umm Kulthum and the Golden Era” at the London Palladium.
Mourad described “El Sett” as presenting Umm Kulthum in a profoundly human light that audiences have never seen before, focusing on aspects of her personal and artistic life less visible to the public. The film was co-produced by Egypt’s Synergy Films, Film Square, and Film Clinic, with backing from Saudi Arabia’s Big Time Investment Fund.
No stranger to biopics, Zaki previously won the Egyptian Order of Cultural Merit for her portrayal of Jehan Sadat in “The Days of Sadat” (2001). The versatile actress—whose credits include Netflix’s “Perfect Strangers,” the Ramadan series “Under Guardianship,” and Hani Khalifa’s “Sleepless Nights”—is also a L’Oréal ambassador and UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador since 2009. She recently starred in Egypt’s Oscar submission, “Flight 404,” and co-founded HerStory Films, a production company that supports female Arab filmmakers.
The star-studded “El Sett” features Mohamed Farag, Ahmed Khaled Saleh, Tamer Nabil, and Sayed Ragab, with guest appearances by Ahmed Helmy (Zaki’s husband), Amr Saad, Karim Abdel Aziz, Nelly Karim, and Amina Khalil. The film required six hours of makeup application daily before cameras rolled, as Hamed and his team jumped back and forth between different periods of Umm Kulthum’s epic life.
“El Sett” is set to open in Egyptian theaters on December 10, with releases planned for several Gulf countries. The European premiere is scheduled for Rotterdam’s International Film Festival in January 2026 as part of a retrospective celebrating Hamed’s work.
