Cinema

Failing transience: Three short films about migrants are interesting, but more is needed

Alexandra d’Onofrio's “Love in the Time of Frontiers” reconstructs the sea journey of the Tunisian Nizar to Italy and his dramatic escape from a center in Sicily’s Trapani, using a combination of mobile phone footage and staged photos. 
28 Aug 2012
Abderrahim lives near the Turin migrant detention center he was previously held in. While waiting to see if he will get official residency in Italy, he spends time trying to communicate with people still inside, climbing up to wave at them...
Yes

Critic’s pick: Haris Epaminonda’s ‘Tarahi II’

24 Aug 2012
At the end of October, Haris Epaminonda’s video “Tarahi II” screened during the Arab Shorts Festival at the Goethe Institute in Cairo. It was part of a program of supremely quiet, largely non-narrative films compiled by...
Yes

Remembering the king of laughter

23 Aug 2012
Whenever the name of Abdel Salam al-Naboulsy is mentioned anywhere around the Arab world, people — whether young or old — cannot help but smile. We remember him driving along with Abdel Halim Hafez through Cairo’s streets...
Yes

What's in an image: Women of the small screen

Actor Mostafa Shaaban and one of his four wives in the 2012 Ramadan TV drama, “The Fourth Wife”
17 Aug 2012
  A family’s strongman in an Upper Egyptian village sits confidently home as he receives congratulations for his marriage to a beautiful young Cairene. The rest of the family men envy him, as their poor illiterate wives are...
Yes

The Virgin, the Copts and Us: Film shatters stereotypes with ingenuity

Director Abdel Messeeh’s mother and the film’s producer, Siham, tours the village with a bullhorn to tell actors about the filming schedule.
30 Jul 2012
Following its award-winning spree at the Third Doha Tribeca Film Festival, the 2012 Berlinale and the 15th Ismailia International Film Festival, Namir Abdel Messeeh took his debut feature documentary “The Virgin, the Copts and Me...
Yes

Film screening in Egyptian Museum cancelled due to sudden exorbitant fee

27 Jul 2012
Egypt's Ministry of State for Antiquities requested the sum of LE22,000 from the producers of "Sound from the Hallways", a short experimental film which was due to be screened at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo on Friday. ...
Yes

Ibrahim Batout's new film to premiere in Venice

Filmmaker Ibrahim al-Batout and actor Amr Waked presenting their new film "Winter of Discontent" at the Falaki Theater of the American University in Cairo.
26 Jul 2012
"Winter of Discontent," Ibrahim Batout's latest film, will have its exclusive world premiere in this year's Venice International Film Festival. The feature film, which follows an activist, a journalist and a state...
Yes

A trip down memory lane

18 Jul 2012
Take a walk down Mahrany Street in the Cairene neighborhood of Fagala and it might feel strangely familiar. One mechanic’s workshop on the ground floor of Building 12 stands out in particular. In fact, it is where hundreds of scenes...
Yes

In ‘How Much Do You Love Me,’ we all face life alone

06 Jul 2012
KHOURIBGA, MOROCCO — In the closing scene of “Kedach ethabni” (How Much Do You Love Me, 2011), eight-year-old Adel walks out of his grandparents’ house, alone, the same way he entered it. He sits in silence on a...
Yes

Humorous, brave, sacrificing and steadfast: The revolution ‘as seen by the other’

28 Jun 2012
ISMAILIA — Among the featured programs at the 15th Ismailia International Film Festival for Documentary and Short Films was one titled “Revolution as seen by the other,” a selection of films made by non-Egyptians about...
Yes

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