Magdy Ahmed Ali Recalls an Unfamiliar Crane in Assistant Director’s Memoir

A brief scene involving Mahmoud Shaaban and a group of Indian workers features in the seventh instalment of Magdy Ahmed Ali’s cinema memoir, told from an assistant director’s perspective.

Shaaban watched as the workers unpacked a box containing a crane. The equipment looked slightly different from the cranes the narrator and his colleagues were accustomed to seeing in Egypt.

That difference prompted concern for Shaaban, referred to affectionately in the account as “Uncle Mahmoud.” The recollection describes the group’s reaction on seeing the unfamiliar equipment, rather than any difficulty operating it.

The passage captures a small behind-the-scenes moment: workers unpacking equipment, a colleague looking on and the uncertainty stirred by a variation on a familiar tool.