Si Omar (Mr. Omar)

With the arrival of new techniques in Egypt such as sound effects, scenes shot on location and the subtitling system - early motion graphics was also on the rise. When the film industry in Cairo became ‘Egyptianized, it attracted local Egyptians to work in it. Muhammad Bauyyumi founded the first cinema studio in Egypt, Studio Misr. This was the first film studio in the real sense of the word, not only in Egypt but in the entire Arab world. This is the opening title graphic for one of Studio Misr's films 'Si Omar' by directors Niazi Mostafa and Naguib al-Rihani. The calligrapher/designer is unknown - but many of the crew were Egyptian so we can only assume that the calligrapher was too. When the title designs are compared with Hollywood films (1941) such as Sergeant York, Honky Tonk, or Louisiana Purchase from the same year, the designs were quite advanced for being the first of their kind in the Arab world. This was when the majority of the film titles became solely in Arabic.