''Bashtery Ragel'' (; "Buying a Man") is a 2017 Egyptian
romantic comedy
Romantic comedy (also known as romcom or rom-com) is a sub-genre of comedy and Romance novel, romance fiction, focusing on lighthearted, humorous plot lines centered on romantic ideas, such as how true love is able to surmount all obstacles. Ro ...
film, starring
Nelly Karim
Nelly Karim (; born 18 December 1974) is an Egyptian actress and singer, model, and former ballerina.
Early Life
Nelly Karim is the daughter of a Soviet Russian mother from Leningrad and an Egyptian father from Zagazig. Born in Alexandria, E ...
.
Karim's character tries to conceive of a child through asking a man to do so via
Facebook
Facebook is a social media and social networking service owned by the American technology conglomerate Meta Platforms, Meta. Created in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with four other Harvard College students and roommates, Eduardo Saverin, Andre ...
. Inas Lofty was the screenwriter.
Plot
The main character, Shams, runs a business. She decides to ask a man to give her a sperm donation, and to make it
halal
''Halal'' (; ) is an Arabic word that translates to in English. Although the term ''halal'' is often associated with Islamic dietary laws, particularly meat that is slaughtered according to Islamic guidelines, it also governs ethical practices ...
she proposes a marriage, though it is only done for the purpose of the sperm donation. Her mother is concerned about the marriage's motive being only for a business reason, but Shams becomes genuinely attracted to him, and he does with his wife. Ultimately they instead have a traditionally conceived child.
France 24
France 24 ( in French) is a French state-owned publicly funded international news television network based in Paris. Its channels, broadcast in French, English, Arabic and Spanish, are aimed at the overseas market.
Based in the Paris suburb ...
stated that this is "perhaps the only ending that could make the film a success with Egyptian audiences".
[
]
Cast
* Nelly Karim
Nelly Karim (; born 18 December 1974) is an Egyptian actress and singer, model, and former ballerina.
Early Life
Nelly Karim is the daughter of a Soviet Russian mother from Leningrad and an Egyptian father from Zagazig. Born in Alexandria, E ...
: Shams Noureddine (شمس نور الدين)
* - Baghat Abu Al-Saad (بهجت أبو السعد)
* : Nagwa Youssef (نجوى يوسف)
Development
According to the screenwriter, the film was modeled after a friend who wanted to be a single mother as she wanted companionship but was uninterested in being married to a man, as she had not found good romantic relationships.[
The film development team used a ]Facebook
Facebook is a social media and social networking service owned by the American technology conglomerate Meta Platforms, Meta. Created in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with four other Harvard College students and roommates, Eduardo Saverin, Andre ...
page purportedly of a woman asking for a sperm donation as a marketing ploy.[ - This is a translation of an article in Arabic published in ''Al-Masry Al-Youm'', with some editing done to it.]
Lofty decided to use the romantic comedy
Romantic comedy (also known as romcom or rom-com) is a sub-genre of comedy and Romance novel, romance fiction, focusing on lighthearted, humorous plot lines centered on romantic ideas, such as how true love is able to surmount all obstacles. Ro ...
genre to make the Egyptian public more amenable to the film's subject matter.[
]
See also
* List of Egyptian films of 2017
A list of films produced in Egypt in 2017. For an A-Z list of films currently on Wikipedia, see :Egyptian films.
References
External links
Egyptian films of 2017at the Internet Movie Database
IMDb, historically known as the Internet ...
References
External links
*
* {{IMDb title, 6539420
Index of articles from
''Egypt Independent
''Egypt Independent'' is an online newspaper that formerly published a weekly 24-page English-language edition of the Egyptian newspaper, '' Al-Masry Al-Youm''.
History
On 24 November 2011, the first print edition of ''Egypt Independent'' was p ...
''
2017 films
2017 romantic comedy films
Egyptian romantic comedy films
2010s Egyptian films