CAIRO — Egypt’s lockdown following the coronavirus outbreak has given a break to filmmakers — one that critics hope will give a new boost to the sector that has largely been copying the trends in the American film industry.

If it weren't for the language, it would be difficult if not downright impossible to distinguish some of the recent Egyptian films from the American films — the plot, the props, the music and even the camera movements are painful copycats produced by the country often referred to as the Hollywood of the Middle East. However, some of the award-winning filmmakers in the last few years have found adopting the themes and styles from Egypt's golden age of cinema pays at the box office and festivals.

"Despite the social changes, such as the wide social media use of children and young people, Egyptians are still fond of a catchy story. Even the most avid social media user is used to storytelling at his home, in cafes, classrooms or even on his Facebook timeline,” Ashraf Gharib, member of the Egyptian Film Critics Association, told Al-Monitor. "The majority of the theater-goers still go for the story. … Egyptian classic cinema was known for its plots that borrowed from the Egyptian daily life and their strong straightforward traditional storytelling — one event after the other with a touch of suspense but not a lot of surprises or unexpected turns.”

This “catching story” is known in Egypt as “hadoutah" — an  Egyptian word to refer to a catchy narrative that has a touch of suspense. Kamal El-Shaikh’s award-winning 1963 “El-Lailah el-Akhirah” ("The Last Night") is an example of "hadoutah” — a woman who has been in a coma wakes up to find herself married to her brother-in-law, who is planning to kill her for her inheritance. Marrying women off to the oldest male relative when her husband dies is common in rural Egypt.