The controversial "African Queens" documentary series "Queen Cleopatra," which portrays the Egyptian monarch as Black, was eventually released on Netflix on Wednesday.
However, Egypt has already started to counterprogram in order to present its own account of the history of the Pharaonic monarch using "the highest levels of research and scrutiny.
In reaction to what some Egyptian critics have dubbed "historical revisionism" in "Queen Cleopatra" by Netflix and others, Al Wathaeqya, the Egyptian state-backed Documentary Channel,
recently announced plans to make a documentary alongside the government-owned broadcaster, United Media Services.
According to a translation of a post on the channel's Facebook page, "Starting as usual in all documentary production sector and documentary channel work,
there are working sessions currently being held with a number of specialists in history, archaeology, and anthropology;
to subject research related to the subject of the film and its image to the highest levels of research and scrutiny. Curtis Ryan Woodside, an independent filmmaker and Egyptologist,
also published a 90-minute English-language documentary on his YouTube account on Wednesday, criticizing "biased" viewpoints and "misinformed,"
contemporary and American interpretations of the monarch. Zahi Hawass, a former Egyptian secretary of state for antiquities affairs who has angrily objected to Netflix's portrayal of the ancient monarch, and Kathleen Martinez,