Marvel's Moon Knight receives eight Emmy nominations

The Egyptian-directed Marvel series Moon Knight took the lion's share of the 19 Primetime Emmy nominations nabbed by Marvel Studios this year.

The highly praised series starring Hollywood star Oscar Isaac and Egyptian-Palestinian actress May Calamawy has been nominated eight times.

One of those nominations was taken by Egyptian music composer Hesham Nazih who was nominated in the outstanding music composition for a limited or anthology series, movie or special category.

“Nothing beats receiving the amazing news of your first Emmy nomination while walking the breathtaking streets of Florence on a full moon night. Can’t express how thrilled I am,” the composer wrote on Twitter. 

Nazih’s score notably used classical Egyptian music by iconic artists such as Abdel Halim Hafiz and Nagat al-Saghira while also incorporating the much more novel mahraghanat style of music.

The director of the show, Mohamed Diab, also took to Twitter to celebrate the news of the numerous nominations.

فخور ان مون نايت ترشح ل ٨ جوائز ايمي ... عن التمثيل و التصوير و الاكشن و الملابس و الصوت و الموسيقي التصويريه للموهوب هشام نزيه... سنتين من حياتي كمخرج رئيسي و منتج منفذ كللوا بالنجاح ده! الحمد لله.

— Mohamed diab محمد دياب (@MohamedDiab678) July 12, 2022

Translation: Proud that Moon Knight has been nominated for 8 Emmy Awards… for acting, photography, action, clothing, sound and soundtrack for the talented Hisham Nazih… two years of my life as a lead director and executive producer have been crowned with success! Thank God

The Egyptian filmmaker, whose previous directorial credits include Cairo 678 - a movie about sexual harassment in Egypt- and Eshtebak (Clash) - about its failed revolution, has said he was motivated to work on the series by the impulse to correct Hollywood's past wrongs.

“It was very important for me to portray us as normal human beings,” he previously said in an interview with IGN, adding: “It’s 20 million people, and we have skyscrapers, and it's a normal place just like this."

Multiple nominations

Moon Knight also received nominations for cinematography, fantasy sci-fi costumes, music composition, character voice-over performance for F Murray Abraham, sound editing, sound mixing, stunt coordination, and stunt performance.

Congratulations to the team behind Marvel Studios' #MoonKnight on its 8 #Emmys nominations, including F. Murray Abraham for Outstanding Character Voice-Over Performance, Outstanding Cinematography, Outstanding Fantasy/Sci-Fi Costumes, (Part 1 of 2) pic.twitter.com/hlJqwgIBgp

— Moon Knight (@moonknight) July 12, 2022

The show which has been streaming on Disney+ since 30 March draws inspiration from the Ancient Egyptian pantheon and has been praised for its authenticity, steering away from orientalist tropes that are all too common in Hollywood.

Since its release, Moon Knight has been praised for its realistic representation of Cairo, with no filter changes, no exaggerated or inaccurate costume designs, and extras who look just as they would appear on the streets of the city today.

The series follows a man with dissociative identity disorder who suffers from a series of mysterious blackouts, where he cannot recall whole days of his life. Eventually, he learns he is the chosen avatar of the Egyptian god, Khonshu, who has tasked him with stopping a rival deity from returning to Earth.

The Primetime Emmy Awards will take place on 13 September and will honour the best in American prime-time television programming