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The collection started with photos and posters
from his hometown in southern Egypt where he worked in a sugar
cane factory, and grew to include thousands of items picked up
from production companies and others who abandoned them as they
switched to digital film.
Items include 50 vintage cinema projectors and a rare poster
from the 1932 film "The Egyptian Author" which Salama says is
thought to be one of the country's oldest.
The Egyptian film industry flourished midway through the last
century, when it was one of the world's largest and nurtured
Omar Sharif, who went on to become a global star. It later
faded, amid domestic political upheavals and competition from
elsewhere in the Arab region.
Salama said he was worried about the fate of his treasured
possessions. His two sons live abroad and have little interest
in taking on a collection in which he invested his earnings
after moving to Suez and establishing a marine services firm.
Some items he expects to sell. Others he will keep aside,
because he considers them of national importance.
"I have negatives for (late president Gamal) Abdel Nasser. Would
I sell Abdel Nasser's negatives?" he asked.
Meanwhile many of the cinemas that used to dot the country, from
provincial towns to oil firm compounds in the desert, have
disappeared.
"All of this is now gone. I'm sad, really sad. Cinema used to be
the second most important product for the country after cotton,"
Salama said.
As of 2018, Egypt had 78 cinemas, mostly in greater Cairo and
Alexandria, down from 110 in 2010, according to the annual
cultural survey released by the country's official statistics
agency, CAPMAS.
Ten regions, mostly in southern Egypt, have no cinemas at all,
the survey said.
(Reporting by Amr Dalsh; Writing by Mai Shams Eldin; Editing by
Mike Collett-White)
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