A 90-minute documentary on Cleopatra is shown on Amazon Prime, Local Now, and YouTube on May 10 featuring Egyptologist Zahi Hawass, Dominican lawyer and archaeologist Kathleen Martinez, independent filmmaker Curtis Ryan Woodside, Biomedical Egyptologist Sofia Aziz and others. The documentary is streamed the same day as the Netflix docudrama portraying Cleopatra as black.
The voiceover on the trailer invites us to “discover the REAL Cleopatra, a figure whose name and legacy is burned into the minds of billions.”
“Coming from a tenacious Greek Macedonian family, she had to fight and even kill for her place on the throne — a noble attempt to save a failing Egypt,” the script goes on.
The writer of the trailer said that Cleopatra’s story has been distorted throughout history with accounts laced with biased opinions and praise.
“Everyone thinks they know her; everyone has a different opinion, but most of those are modern, based on films and misinformed playwrights. How much do we really know about the true Cleopatra?”
The documentary was co-produced by Hawass, Aziz, Martinez, Egyptian radiologist Sahar Saleem and filmed by Woodside.
The trailer was met with a massive wave of vitriol on social media, with Egyptians expressing objection against Queen Cleopatra’s complexion and origins.
Netflix is definitely in the dock facing charges of falsifying Egyptian history in the name of Afrocentrism, which seems all the rage across the US these days.
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