WATANI International
31 January 2010
The French directors Guillaume Hecht and Valérie Girié have finished their three-year filming of the 90-minute docudrama Ramses the Second, The Great Journey and are taking it to Paris for editing. The docudrama tackles the story of one of Egypt’s greatest pharaohs, Ramses II, who reigned over Egypt for 67 years and died at the age of 92 some 3200 years ago. He was buried in the Valley of the Kings in what is today Luxor’s West Bank from whence began his journey to Eternity—the starting point of the docudrama.
After the burial of Ramses II, his mummy was constantly removed from his tomb. It was only after several excavations directed by Rosselini and Champollion, Lepsius, and Carter, in 1872, that it was discovered that his mummy had disappeared. It was rediscovered at the end of the 19th century in Deir al-Bahari, far from the place where Ramses died. Following a police investigation which began in Cairo and ended at Luxor, two brothers revealed the hiding-place of the treasure they hoped to sell.
The docudrama retraces, through state-of-the-art technology, the incredible story of the mummy, giving new insight into Ramses II’s extraordinarily long reign. Hecht and Girié were given special permission to film in the tomb (KV7) which belonged to Ramses II.