This beautifully styled documentary, narrated by Omar Sharif, carefully balances elements so that the video never drags. Long clips of Umm Kulthum singing are interspersed with a dramatized voice-over and shots of the Egyptian countryside. Interviews with writers, journalists, musicologists, folks on the street, a radio commentator, and even Nobel novelist Naguib Mahfouz emphasize the importance of her voice to the people who listened to her. Umm Kulthum: A Voice Like Egypt succeeds in making the singer and the music, and even to a certain extent the politics of the country, accessible to a whole new generation of music lovers. --Jenny Brown

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"My father was uneasy. The idea that his daughter should sing in front of men he didn’t know was difficult for him to accept, but my singing helped support the family. So he dressed me in boys’ clothes and I sang this way for several years. I realize now that he wanted to convince himself, and the audience too, that the singer was a young boy and not a young woman." -From "Umm Kulthum: A Voice Like Egypt"

She had the musicality of Ella Fitzgerald, the public presence of Eleanor Roosevelt and the audience of Elvis Presley. Her name was Umm Kulthum and she became a powerful symbol, first of the aspirations of her country, Egypt, and then of the entire Arab world.

Born a peasant at the turn of the century, she became a woman of great wealth and power, confidant of presidents and kings and, above all, President Gamal Abd al-Nasser’s unofficial ambassador in the region. Four million people were on the streets of Cairo for her funeral in 1975. To this day, her cassettes outsell every other Arabic female vocalist.

Narrated by Omar Sharif, Umm Kulthum: A Voice Like Egypt is the first documentary to bring Umm Kulthum to an American audience. The film puts her life in the context of the epic story of 20th century Egypt as it shook off colonialism and confronted modernity. The camera explores her astonishing connection with her audience, taking us into her village in the Nile Delta and into the cafes, markets and streets of Cairo where she lived and worked. From the Nobel laureate Naguib Mahfouz to a 12-year-old girl in an outdoor restaurant, people speak about the role Umm Kulthum’s music has played in their lives and sing their favorite songs for the camera.

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