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Al-Ahram Weekly 22 - 28 June 2000 Issue No. 487 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 22 - 28 June 2000 Issue No. 487
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Pack of Cards
By Madame Sosostris
* Not everybody is planning their escape to an island in the sun just yet, however. The 43 young Egyptians who have recently returned to Egypt after completing their post-graduate studies in Britain are celebrating more cerebral achievements after they received their award certificates, presented by British Ambassador Graham Boyce last Tuesday. Among the lucky recipients was our own Omayma Abdel-Latif, who was studying at the School for Oriental and African Studies, where she received a masters of arts in Middle Eastern Studies.
The students have spent up to a year in the UK studying for masters, PhDs or post-graduate diplomas in fields ranging from epidemiology to international law. Their studies were funded jointly by the British government and local co-sponsors under the Chevening Scholarship scheme, which has been operating in Egypt since1986. And in view of the scheme's success, three new co-sponsors -- MobiNil, Cairo Barclays and HSBC Bank -- have joined this year. Thanks to their support and that of others, the number of Egyptians studying in Britain under the Chevening scheme in 2000/ '01 is expected to exceed 50, for the first time ever.
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* The beastly heat wave seems to have broken at last, and this week we have been treated to some of those glorious evenings so propitious to pool parties and lazy felucca rides. I, for one, have taken advantage of both activities with a vengeance, but I hear that others went even further to enjoy their weekends. Our dear photographer Randa Shaath, for instance, always finds a hundred pretexts to drive to Sharm Al-Sheikh, where she and her husband, talented photographer Tom Hartwell, share a retreat with a few of their good friends. Even on holiday, however, Randa never forgets that she is a professional and, spotting this courageous budding sailor braving the waves, she could not resist training her lens on him. That is how she was able to send us this lovely memento -- from Sharm with love.
* More graduation ceremonies were in order, at City University this time, organised in cooperation with the Arab Academy of Sciences and Technology to award BAs and MAs to 179 students. The regional vice-president of City University, Mohamed Hussein, opened the event by announcing that Egyptian and Arab students will pay 40 per cent less on their tuition fees than their counterparts in the US. Attending were Minister of Health Ismail Sallam, Laila Karame, honorary president of the Arab Businesswomen's Council, Emirates Ambassador Mohamed Mahmoud, renowned TV personality Safaa Abul-Seoud and a plethora of luminaries from the art world among whom I spotted Hala Sedqi, Laila Taher, Khaled El-Nabawi and Maestro Selim Sehab.
* Our dear colleague Hala Mustafa has just had her research on political parties (Al-Ahzab) published by Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies. I highly recommend it to you, dears, if you are at all serious about understanding Egyptian politics. Concise and well written, it contains all you ever wanted to know about the topic.
* Darlings, I am sure you all know that when it comes to transferring money overseas to pay for all these little gâteries that you don't always find handy here and just can't do without, the place to go is Western Union. They will take care of the operation in minutes through International Business Associates (IBA), the sole agents in Egypt, chaired by the very able businesswoman Ann Marie Harrisson. Well, dears, it seems that Western Union distinguished itself and was given due praise at the meeting organised by Capital Link Trade in the framework of the First Arab Forum and Exhibitions for Financial Institutions recently held at the Cairo International Conference Centre and attended by Prime Minister Atef Ebeid, Minister of Economy and Foreign Trade Youssef Boutros Ghali, Minister of Treasury Medhat Hassanein and former Prime Minister Ali Lutfi.
* Those of you who yearn for the cool darkness of a movie theatre will be thrilled at this snippet of good news: the National Film Festival is taking place this week with the jury headed by our good friend and colleague poet Abdel-Mo'ti Hegazi. Film buffs will be delighted at the number and variety of feature films, short fiction works, short documentaries, and animation clips competing. In the animation, short documentary and short fiction categories, our talented National Cinema Institute students will be given a chance to compete with those produced by the National Cinema Centre and the few sponsored by the Nile Thematic Channels. The Cairo Sheraton movie theatre is the main rendezvous, and there you can have a glimpse of the festival's highlights. These include Youssri Nassrallah's acclaimed Al-Madina (The City), winner of the Locarno Film Festival's Special Jury Prize last year, and which is currently playing in Switzerland for the fourth month, as well as in Paris and New York. Al-Madina revolves around Ali (an excellent Bassem Samra) who dreams of being an actor and a boxer and flees to Paris, where he works in rigged fights, hiring himself out to shady gamblers. Gannat Al-Shayatin (Fallen Angel's Paradise), written by Mustafa Zikri, produced by and starring my dear friend Mahmoud Hemeida and directed by Osama Fawzi, is another worthwhile treat which reaped several awards in African and Arab festivals. Mahmoud not only financed this ambitious non-commercial film, he plays a corpse throughout. Amr Waked, Sari El-Naggar, Salah Fahmi and Safwa are all first-time actors, but play the best tramps Egyptian cinema screen has ever seen, in my humble opinion. Caroline Khalil plays Mahmoud's conservative daughter, while Lebleba is his mistress and Menha El-Batrawi his wife. Tareq El-Tilmissani's cinematography and Fathi Salama's music are also top-notch.
Besides such landmarks of contemporary Egyptian cinema, there is also Atef Hetata's debut Al-Abwab Al-Mughlaqa (Shut Doors), winner of several international awards; Youssef Chahine's latest Al-Akhar (The Other); Dawoud Abdel-Sayed's Ard Al-Khawf (Land of Fear) with Ahmed Zaki; and Karim Gamaleddin's debut, Hassan wa Aziza (Hassan and Aziza).
* Finally, my sweets, whatever your plans for the summer, don't forget the opening of Francisco Coello's exhibition of paintings on the 27th at the Opera Art Gallery. Mustafa Nagi, chairman of the National Cultural Centre, and Franklin Bahamonde, ambassador of Ecuador in Cairo, will preside; but if such formal events are not your cup of tea, you will always have a chance to peruse the intriguing artwork at your leisure, since the exhibition stays open until 14 July. Of course, by then I will be in Paris, my loves, decked out in my tricolour cocarde -- but that's another story.
