Three versions of woman
Hani Mustafa questions the agendas informing Middle East productions dealing with women's issues

Films in competition
Cairo Film Festival highlights
By Sonali Pahwa, Sherif El-Azma, Youssef Rakha and Sherif Iskander

Algeria unveiled
Two major Paris exhibitions display a fascinating panorama of Algerian history, writes David Tresilian

Plain Talk
It is exceptional for two writers from the same country to win the Nobel Prize for Literature in quick succession...
By Mursi Saad El-Din

No business like show business
Mario Kassar tells Mohamed El-Assyouti about US censorship and the history of Rambo

A symbolic overloading
This year's Tribute to Arab Women Directors leads Sonali Pahwa to wonder whether the time is not ripe for women filmmakers to be relieved of their responsibility for representing women's questions and allowed to expand the resources of their art

Without calculation...
That, at least, is how Sherif Sonbol says he takes his photographs. The images he produces, however, make the formulation a little hard to believe. Following a hugely successful five-week exhibition of his work at the Lincoln Centre in New York he talks to Nigel Ryan about his metamorphosis from insurance underwriter to award winning photographer