Al-Ahram Weekly | Culture

		8 - 14 August 2002 Issue No. 598 Culture	Current issue Previous issue Site map
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Summer festivals
THE ALEXANDRIA Film Festival's 18th round is due to start on 18 September, continuing for a week. The director, Mustafa Muharram, has been meeting with Alexandria Governor Abdel-Salam El-Mahgoub to put the final touches on the arrangements and assure additional funding for the festival. Sahar Al-Layali (Late Nights) and Bahib Al-Sinima (I Love Cinema), currently in the final stages of production, are expected to premier at the festival.
A special section will be dedicated to Iraqi or Iraqi inspired-films with Egyptian stars, including screenings of Salah Abu Seif's Al-Qadisiya starring Soad Hosni and Ezzat El-Alayli, Faisal Al-Yassiri's Babel Habibati (Babel, My Love) starring Yehia El-Fakharani and Samah Anwar, Saheb Haddad's Mutawie wa Bahiya, starring Karam Mutawie and Soheir El-Murshidi, Foad El-Tuhami's Al-Tagruba (The Experiment) and Ahmed Badrakhan's Al-Qahira Baghdad (Cairo-Baghdad) starring Madiha Yussri.
The Ismailia Festival for Documentary and Short Films is scheduled to open on 27 September. Ten films that have won prizes at European festivals have been included in Ismailia's programme. The festival will honour the late filmmaker Radwan El- Kashef and screen his documentary film Al- Ganoubiya (The Southerner). Film critic Ali Abu Shadi, president of the National Centre for Cinema, is the director of the festival this year.

French university opens
AMBASSADOR Tahani Omar has been elected as the first president of the French University in Cairo. She is the first woman to serve as a university president in Egypt. The university will begin classes in October in the faculties of applied linguistics and business administration.

Prizes in court
DEBATE over the Ministry of Culture's choices for this year's state awards heightened as Farouk Abdallah, excluded from the shortlist of this year's excellence award in literature, filed a suit before the administrative court at the State Council. Abdallah questions the criteria used in the shorlisting precedures.

Prolific Bosatie
MOHAMED El-Bosatie's latest collection of short stories, Al-Shurti Yalhu Qalilan (The Policeman Has Some Fun), is due to be published early September. The writer has, reportedly, also just completed a new novel, Al-Khala Fardos (Aunt Fardos), set, in typical Bosatie fashion, in the Egyptian countryside, and dealing with many of the problems facing women in contemporary Egypt.

Museum for Sayyab
THE IRAQI Ministry of Culture has dedicated a museum to the late poet Badr Shaker Al-Sayyab in his hometown, Jikor, near Basra. The museum will showcase rare photographs of the poet alongside personal belongings. It will also include a library of the poet's works and articles published on Al-Sayyab.
The plan to honour Al-Sayyab includes the renovation of the homes of both the poet and his grandfather.

Tannoura goes Greek
THE EGYPTIAN Cultural Centre in Athens is organising a special Egyptian night next Saturday in association with authorities in Crete. The event will include a performance of the Tannoura Troupe, which is also participating in the annual Cretan Folkloric Arts Festival. The festival includes participants from Spain, France, Italy and Turkey.

Cinematic investment
MISR Company for Film Production and Distribution's CEO, Salah Hassab El-Nabi, is preparing for a seminar next month that will include representatives of the major Egyptian banks and leading film producers to discuss ways in which banks might finance film production. The company is currently discussing a deal with Banque Misr to co-finance films.

Southern journeys
FILMMAKER Attiyat El-Abnoudi has just finished work on Qitar Al-Nuba (The Nubia Train), her latest documentary. The film follows the train on its journey carrying Nubians from Alexandria to their hometowns in the south and recounts the stories behind the passengers' journeys: visiting family, looking for a bride, seeking a business investment and so on. The film is produced by the National Centre for Cinema.

Fire in Malheim
AL-HANAGER's production Mush'ilu Al- Hara'iq (Firesetters), based on Max Fritsh's text and directed by Awni Krumi, will take part in the upcoming German Theatre Festival in Malheim from 16 to 22 September. The play, which opened last February at Al-Hanager, will also participate in this year's Cairo International Festival for Experimental Theatre.

Alexandrian guests
FRENCH President Jacques Chirac has announced he will attend the opening of the Library of Alexandria, rescheduled for 16 October. Chirac will fly to Egypt on his way to Beirut to attend the Francophone summit on 18 October.
By Amina Elbendary

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