Al-Ahram Weekly | Culture

		Al-Ahram Weekly Online 9 - 15 May 2002 Issue No.585
Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875		Current issue \| Previous issue \| Site map

Canal Plus's 11
ELEVEN filmmakers from around the world have begun filming 11-minute narrative films revolving around the 11 September attacks on Washington and New York in a project organised by the French satellite television channel Canal Plus.
The films are intended to reflect a range of perspectives on issues raised by the event. Speaking after a few days of filming in the Lebanese town of Jubail, Youssef Chahine expressed unhappiness with his fellow participants' sympathy for the "reductive" Western viewpoint.
"This is not a competition but a challenge," Chahine announced, "which pits one viewpoint against another. And I have the responsibility to communicate the Arab viewpoint, being the only Arab director participating."

Darwish's Lannan
ON SUNDAY 28 April Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish received the third annual Lannan Award for Cultural Freedom ($35,000) at the Lang Performing Arts Centre, a department of Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania. Darwish read extracts from his latest poems to mark the occasion.

Documenting Palestine
YESTERDAY the Radio and Television Union's Nile News Channel held a Palestine solidarity evening at the Cairo Opera House Main Hall. It featured the screening of eight documentaries produced by the channel since 1998.

Palace prizes
AT THE CHILDREN's Cultural Palace in Garden City the General Organisation for Cultural Palaces yesterday held an award- giving ceremony to mark the end of its annual literary competition. Anas El-Fiqi, the head of the Organisation, handed out the awards. The competition revolved around "the role of women in the life of enlightenment pioneers." The first five winners received a total of LE4,100 for their entries.

Bikar's viewers
THE EGYPTIAN Association of Plastic Arts Critics is organising a competition for critical writings on artist and critic Hussein Bikar. Essays must be submitted to the Association's headquarters at Wikalat Al- Ghouri before the end of July. Samir Gharib, head of the Association, announced a first prize of LE2,000. The second and third prizes will be LE1,500 and LE1,000.

Egyptians in Yemen
OPENING on Tuesday, Egyptian Film Week in Yemen, organised by the Egyptian Cultural Centre in Sanaa, is dedicated to the Palestinian issue. Featuring Youssef Chahine's Al-Ard (The Land) and Al- Nasser Salaheddin (Saladin), among many popular and classical offerings, the week's screenings revolve around themes of Arab nationalism.

Directors pardoned
SEVEN Egyptian directors were given back their jobs at the media company ART following the intercession of Mamdouh El- Liethi, head of the Filmmakers Syndicate.
On receiving the directors' complaints of unfair dismissal El-Liethi contacted Gaafar Abdel-Salam, the company's legal consultant, about the possibility of reinstating them. El-Liethi then spoke with Shiekh Saleh Kamel, ART's CEO, who agreed to give the directors back their jobs.

Sanctions galore
THE INTERNET is increasingly being used as a vehicle to promote the imposing of sanctions against Israel. A petition at www.stopisrael.com, for example, is organised by two Belgian activists and calls for the exclusion of the Israeli participant from the European Broadcasting Union's Eurovision Song Festival 2002, due to open in Tallinn, Estonia on 25 May, unless she agrees to begin the concert with a call for peace. In their circular e-mail Semlali Sultan and Johan Melotte likened the situation in Israel to that in South Africa: "We must also exclude a country which does not respect the resolutions of the United Nations and disparages international humanitarian laws."
A boycott of the Israeli academy has also been proposed, with many academics in Europe demanding that, in the way that South African universities were boycotted in the anti-apartheid era, so Israeli universities should be boycotted now.

Seminar week
A LECTURE at the Supreme Council for Culture on the influence on the young of satellite television brought together Cairo University professor Mona El-Hadidi and veteran Al-Ahram writer Ahmed Youssef El-Qura'i, among others, to discuss the implications of changes in the media for social life, reports Mustafa El-Minshawi.
El-Hadidi read out some "to the editor" commentaries on the Arab fare available before calling on contending channels to streamline their operations to complement rather than compete with each other.
Meanwhile, President Mubarak's political adviser Osama El-Baz presided over the latest seminar on Palestine at Dar Al-Kutub which focused on dimensions of the Egyptian position on the Intifada. Palestine needs not a greater number of fighters, El- Baz announce, but greater Arab support.
Compiled by Youssef Rakha

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