Obituary: Youssef El-Sisi: Not a lights down man By David Blake And Aziza Sami	Screen savers By Nigel Ryan Plain talk By Mursi Saad El-Din Literature, criticism, Cairo 2000 Next week Cairo will host two major literary events: the Second International Conference for Literary Criticism and the Sixth International Symposium on Comparative Literature, organised, respectively, by the Egyptian Society for Literary Criticism and Cairo University's Department of English Language and Literature. Below a preview of the two conferences
The New Jerusalem Roland Joffé speaks to Mohamed El-Assyouti about honesty, entertainment, Hollywood and the future Above and beyond Khairiya El-Bishlawi samples some triumphantly romantic fare Telling the war Hani Mustafa discovers a war-torn cinematic country, and notes its absence from the official competition Cairo Film Festival Programme
During her two-day stay as the Cairo International Film Festival's guest of honour, legendary Italian film star Sophia Loren catered vivaciously to a besotted audience during her press conference, reports Hanan Sabra. Her 90 film career, two Oscars (with which she said she would juxtapose the Egyptian prize on her mantelpiece), her professional and personal affairs with filmmakers (from Vittorio De Sica and Marcello Mastroianni) and, "on condition that there be a good script," even a (joke?) future collaboration with actor Hussein Fahmi, director of the Cairo Festival, are but a few of the topics that came up during the conference, and to which Loren's responses unfailingly charmed her audience. Loren was perceptive and down to earth all throughout the litany of questions -- and insisted that motherhood had been far more fulfilling than international stardom. Early struggles, present endeavours (a period drama set in her native Naples) and future hopes: at 66 years of age, neither beauty nor wit have let her down. "I started at 16," she declared with confidence. "I hope to keep going -- forever." On working with Charlie Chaplin (The Countess from Hong Kong): "It was a great honour to work with him, of course, but you can't imagine how much I learned from the experience. As soon as I was given the script, I accepted, I didn't even bother to read it before deciding. Had he given me the telephone directory and asked me to recite it, I would have done so without even thinking." On Omar El-Sherif (opposite whom she starred in three films): "He is a very good actor. We were both very lucky to stumble upon such good work together. It was really more than a miracle, how well we got on and how quickly we took to it."