thesilkroadtoday
At 9:00 p.m. on Monday, June 1, 2026, Nile Culture Channel will open a new window onto the world of literature and cinema through a live episode of the Egyptian Television program Kawalees (Behind the Scenes), titled “The Journey of Epics: From Literature to Cinema.” The episode will feature poet, writer, and traveler Dr. Ashraf Aboul-Yazid, Editor-in-Chief of the Silk Road Literature series, in a conversation exploring the secrets of epic works that have shaped humanity’s collective memory across the ages.
The episode examines how the great epics traveled from oral storytelling traditions and literary texts to the silver screen, becoming cinematic landmarks that have left a lasting imprint on the global imagination. Dr. Aboul-Yazid will discuss how cinema has succeeded in reinterpreting the stories of heroes, gods, kings, and warriors through a contemporary visual language while preserving their intellectual depth and human significance. The discussion is also expected to highlight the common characteristics of the world’s great epics, with their journeys filled with trials, challenges, and universal themes such as the struggle between good and evil, the quest for immortality, and enduring questions of identity, freedom, and destiny.
The program will pause at timeless masterpieces of human heritage, beginning with The Iliad and its cinematic adaptations, and continuing through The Mahabharata and The Shahnameh. The discussion will not be limited to Greek and Eastern traditions but will also explore some of the most celebrated films inspired by modern epics, as well as the enduring appeal that allows this form of storytelling to captivate successive generations. The episode will also introduce viewers to the poets who created these epics throughout history—from Homer and Virgil to Ferdowsi and Cao Xueqin—and to the literary and cinematic translations and adaptations of their works.
This episode promises to be a special event for lovers of literature, history, and cinema. It offers an expansive cultural reading of epics as mirrors of peoples’ experiences and grand aspirations, revealing how humanity has continually returned, over thousands of years, to stories of heroism, journeys, and confrontations in search of meaning, dreams, and destiny.
The Kawalees team includes producer Susan Abbas Al-Baroudi, editors Hanan Fikry and Reham Ragab, director Metwally Ismail El-Deeb, and is presented by broadcaster Nehad El-Hdddiny.
