Al-Ahram Weekly | Culture

		Al-Ahram Weekly Online 28 Feb. - 6 March 2002 Issue No.575
Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875		Current issue \| Previous issue \| Site map

Egyptian art in Paris
ON MONDAY cultural attaché Hani Helal inaugurated the third plastic arts salon, an event featuring exhibitions and seminars, at the Egyptian Cultural Centre in Paris. The event, which will go on until 3 March, is international in essence, a spokesman for the Centre announced to the press. Participating are 15 artists from countries as wide apart as Iraq and Japan.
Egyptian participants include the Paris-residing artist Abdel-Raziq Okasha as well as art critics Hassan Osman and Nagwa El-Ashri.

Germany galore
THE FOURTH round of the German- Arab Media Dialogue, an event that is being held in Cairo for the first time this year, opened on Monday at the Arab League headquarters. Organised by the German Press Administration in collaboration with the Arab League and the Association of Arab Journalists in Germany, the event's main topic concerns images of Arabs in the German media and images of Germans in the Arab media; the aim of the debates and exchanges, a spokesperson announced, was to further understanding across difference and reinforce cooperation.
The German delegation, which includes five German journalists visiting Cairo for the first time, is headed by Der Spiegel correspondent Volkhart Vindfuhr, a long-standing Cairo resident and the head of the Foreign Press Association.
Arab journalists working abroad, on the other hand, are represented by Nagui Abbas (from Germany) and Abdel- Hadi Abu-Taleb (from Paris).

Paraguay all around
STARTING last Sunday, the Paraguay Embassy has been supervising a week of Paraguayan culture in both Cairo and Alexandria. The festival's opening ceremony took place at 7pm at the Spanish Cultural Centre (Cervantes Institute) in Doqqi, presided over by embassy officials. An indication of the tendency to improve and revitalise Egyptian-Latin American relations, the festival, which boasts the presence of the well-known writer Augusto Roa Bastos, features seminars, musical performances and film screenings.

Lear and the Sultan
THE NATIONAL Theatre, soon to undergo renovations, opened on Saturday with director Ahmed Abdel-Halim's new take on King Lear. Starring Yehia El-Fakharani, Sawsan Badr and Reham Abdel-Ghafour, the play is expected to be a big hit with both audiences and critics.
A day later playwright Mahfouz Abdel-Rahman's Al-Sultan Yalhu (The Sultan Jests), another state theatre production directed by Amr Dawwara, opened at the Balloon Theatre. Starring Ahmed Rateb, Mahmoud Abdel-Ghaffar and Samira Abdel-Aziz, among others, this fantastical treatment of the ongoing historical issues of political freedom and justice is based on episodes from The Thousand and One Nights.

Romance in Mons
ENDING ON Friday, the 18th Festival of Romantic Films in Mons, Belgium (15-22 February) featured a special programme of Egyptian screenings, Egypt having been chosen as the festival's guest of honour this year. Attending the opening ceremony was the Egyptian ambassador to Belgium Soliman Awwad, along with film star Nabila Ebeid, a member of the festival jury.
Filmmaker Khaled Al-Hagar's latest feature Ghurfa lil-Igar (A Room for Rent) is participating in the official competition, while seven Egyptian films, spanning many years and a range of directorial styles, are being screened on the fringe: highlights include Inas El-Degheidi's Imra'a Wahida La Takfi (One Woman is Not Enough), Mohamed Kamel El-Qalyoubi's Itfarrag Ya Salam (Watch and Wonder) and Said Marzouq's Zawgati wal Kalb (My Wife and the Dog).

Centuries of Mansoura
LAST WEEK the third Daqahliya Writers' Conference celebrated the Battle of Mansoura (AD 1250), the occasion on which the people of Daqahliya successfully evicted the armies of the Seventh Crusade, taking Louis IX prisoner and confining him in Dar Ibn Luqman. On the topic and related issues, a number of academics and authors held forth, presenting a range of theses.
Shalabi El-Ge'iedi and Fouad Hegazi discussed the battle itself, while critic El-Sayed Negm presented a discussion of three novels dealing with related experiences of war: Al-Asra Yuqimoun Al- Mataris (Prisoners of War Building Garrisons) and Al-Raqs ala Tuboul Misriya (Dancing to Egyptian Drums) by Fouad Hegazi as well as Makan Taht Al-Shams (A Place Under the Sun) by Ali Helima.
The papers submitted at the conference were printed in book form. To celebrate the event, moreover, four books were published: Ashraf Hassan Abdel- Rahman's collection of short stories, Yawm Munasib lil Qatl (A Suitable Day to Kill), another collection of stories by Mohamed Khairat Hammad, Mohamed Khalil's play Dhi'ab Bani Marwan (The Wolves of Bani Marwan), and poet Amal Gamal's critical "Studies in the Novel and the Short Story."

Opera elsewhere
THE OPERA House's "artistic and cultural celebration" on the Assiut University campus was attended by 7,000 students. The event featured seminars as well as musical performances organised and funded by the Opera House. The seminar featuring Nour El-Sherif and Riyad El-Kholi, in particular, proved remarkably popular. Assiut governor Ahmed Hammam expressed an interest in the event which, he said, would be held annually in the governorate.
Compiled by Youssef Rakha

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