Najdat Anzour

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Najdat giving directions during the production of The Last Cavalier

Footage of the Last Cavalier

Najdat Ismail Anzour is a Syrian television director of Circassian origins. He is most known in the Arab world for his prolific TV series with a distinct style. His father Ismail Anzour, the director who made Taht sama'a Dimashq (Under Damascus Skies), Syria's first silent film, in 1932. Anzour graduated as a mechanical engineer, but credits his father with encouraging him to direct films. Initially, he created TV ads (numbering over 1,000), and later went into TV series, then films.

[edit] TV series

Anzour directed over 20 TV series with a distinctive style. They are mostly set in an ancient era, in the Arabian desert or oases. The series has more realistic fighting scenes and lots of night shooting. They often tell the story of tribal conflicts, honor, romance, ...etc. Normally, his work is aired in the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, where TV viewing is at its peak in the Arab world.

Al Kawaser
Al Jawareh (The Predators).
Romh Al Nar (Spear of Fire)
Searching for Saladin
The Last Cavalier
2007 Roof of the World: based on Ibn Fadlan's tenth century travels and adventures in Scandinavia, and compares Northern European culture, primitive at the time, and Muslim culture, at its height then.

[edit] Films

Some of his recent films are aired by the Dubai based Middle East Broadcasting Corporation and aim to end the terrorism committed by Muslim extremists. Although his work is supported by many Muslims, others object to his vilification of terrorist actions .

Al-Hour al-Eyn (Beautiful Virgins) (2005) traces the lives of attackers, victims, and survivors of the November 2003 terrorist bombings of Riyadh, and challenged the popular belief among many terrorists that they would be rewarded with seventy-two beautiful virgins each in heaven. This film was viewed by an estimated fifty million people.
"Renegades" (2006) is one episode is a series called Always by Hatem Ali. In Anzour's "Renegades" episode the subject is how the terrorists who bombed the London underground in 2005 were not true Muslims because they acted with violence. The episode also points out that good Muslims were killed by the attacks as well as innocent non-Muslims.