This paper aims to explore ancient Egyptian representations in modern Egyptian popular culture with a particular focus on film. The depiction of ancient Egypt in Egyptian cinema is relatively infrequent, in contrast to several lavish Hollywood and European film productions that often represent a stereotypical illustration of ancient Egypt through an orientalist prism. My goal is to examine, in particular, Arous El-Nil (Bride of the Nile), which in 1963 was the first post-colonial Egyptian film to represent ancient Egypt, albeit in a whimsical fashion, both aesthetically and textually. I argue that Arous El-Nil recapitulates a nationalist state narrative imparted through Western and orientalist reproductions of a cursory and abstract perception of ancient Egypt, rendered in a subjective and essentialist mode. It focuses on how film was used as a tool to reproduce orientalist tropes about ancient Egypt through the reproduction of myths. I draw mainly on Edward Said’s Orientalism as well as Stuart Hall’s concept of representation and its relation to power. I look at film as a site of struggle over identity as it also reveals embedded anxieties and internalization of orientalist tropes of ancient Egypt. Through a narrative analysis of some of the most significant dialogues in the film these different power dynamics will be further articulated. The film despite being worthy of recognition for its attempt to depict ancient Egypt with the incorporation of advanced cinematic techniques at the time. It is however emblematic of the ongoing struggle since the beginning of the twentieth century over what constitutes an Egyptian identity. It reflects a deeper issue which testifies to the complexities of both imperialism and nationalism as forces of power over knowledge production and the institutions that shape the narratives of ethnic and national identities. It is also a manifestation to what extent the whitewashing of ancient Egypt has managed to disintegrate seven thousand years of history with its complexities to symbols and stories disjointed from the reality of that history for the sake of entertainment. Egyptian perceptions of ancient Egypt have varied over the years, yet knowledge of ancient Egypt was primarily exclusive to a certain social and political class of Egyptians. This research aims to highlight the importance of decolonizing Egyptology, along with the knowledge it produced and disseminated across different media platforms.