Tarek Al Arian touched down at Cannes this week carrying a pitch for a historical drama about Marguerite Alibert — the French courtesan who shot Egyptian prince Ali Kamel Fahmy Bey in Room 41 of the Savoy Hotel, London, on the night of July 9, 1923, and eventually walked out of the Old Bailey a free woman.
Al Arian, best known for the Egyptian action franchise Sons of Rizk, is developing the project as a prestige drama. Deadline reported the Cannes pitch in May 2026.
Alibert's path to acquittal was not straightforward. She had been convicted, then retried. Running alongside the legal proceedings was a separate and considerably more delicate fact: Alibert had carried on an affair years earlier with the Prince of Wales, the future Edward VIII. The nature of any correspondence between them was a matter British authorities were reportedly in no hurry to see aired in open court.
The Fahmy family disputed the defense narrative vigorously. That dispute did not change the verdict.
Al Arian's previous filmography runs to high-volume Egyptian action sequels. The Alibert project would mark his first production set inside a Savoy Hotel corridor, a Paris demimonde, and a 1923 London courtroom — sometimes all three at once.
The refrigerator was not mentioned in the complaint. There was no refrigerator. There was, however, a pearl-handled pistol, a dead prince, and a letter the Crown never introduced into evidence.