Latest in Culture Highlight
Latest in Culture
Iranians proud over US award win for ‘A Separation’
Iranians reacted with pride on Monday after an Iranian film, "A Separation," won a major US prize — a triumph on the international stage that, for a moment, eclipsed geopolitical tensions. Its victory at Hollywood’s Golden Globes, where director Asghar Farhadi picked up the award for best foreign-language movie from pop star Madonna late Sunday, …
Top dog Oscar campaign heats up after ‘Artist’ awards
A growing pack of fans are howling for Uggie the terrier to get a sniff at the Oscars after the Jack Russell stole the show in the silent movie "The Artist" that scooped a slew of Golden Globe awards. The nine-year-old mutt last year took the unofficial Palm Dog prize at Cannes for his role …
Future shorts pop-up film festival
This past Sunday, the Future Shorts film festival seamlessly emerged in the Amuse Lifestyle Concept store located in Zamalek, Cairo — becoming the 132nd location added to the London-based pop-up festival. Set up in 2003, Future Shorts provides a platform for filmmakers and enthusiasts to submit creations and screen the best short films within the …
A tamer Gervais leads predictable Golden Globes
The Hollywood Foreign Press Association dared to let Ricky Gervais come back and host the Golden Globe Awards, a year after he insulted the organization and nearly everyone in the star-studded room with his lacerating wit. But Gervais and the show seemed tamer and more predictable this year, not quite living up to outrageous reputations. …
Almost 3,000-year-old tomb of female singer found in Egypt
CAIRO: Swiss archaeologists have discovered the tomb of a female singer dating back almost 3,000 years in Egypt’s Valley of the Kings, Antiquities Minister Mohamed Ibrahim said on Sunday. The rare find was made accidentally by a team from Switzerland’s Basel University headed by Elena Pauline-Grothe and Susanne Bickel in Karnak, near Luxor in Upper …
Artist Khaled Hafez’s latest solo exhibit: Depth and sophistication
Currently at Safar Khan Gallery is artist Khaled Hafez’s painting exhibition titled "On Codes, Symbols & Stockholm Syndrome." His first solo show in two years, the collection of works presents a new twist on his earlier style, albeit with more depth and sophistication. Heavily involved in all the tumultuous happenings, Hafez, like many artists in …
Palestinian artist ‘creates’ Gaza metro
Underground train travel to bypass a chaotic traffic system? Welcome to Gaza, one of the world’s most crowded places, where a conceptual art installation expresses this tantalizing idea. Palestinian artist Mohamed Abusal erected luminous red metro signs in 50 different, and often unlikely places, across the Gaza strip, the dusty coastal territory measuring 40 square …
Wi-Drive gives Apple-Amazon gadgets more capacity
Kingston Technology Co. is helping pack more entertainment into Apple gadgets and Kindle Fire tablets. A Wi-Drive demonstrated at the Consumer Electronics Show here by the computer memory specialty company allows data-devouring iPhone, iPad, iPod touch and Kindle Fire fans easily tote more movies, music, pictures or digital documents. "Kindle Fire only gives you one …
Make money not arthouse films: British PM tells industry
After a period of critical and commercial success, Prime Minister David Cameron has urged the British film industry to focus on making more mainstream movies to allow them to compete with Hollywood. Six months after the multi-billion-dollar grossing "Harry Potter" series came to an end, and almost a year after the low-budget film "The King’s …
Jolie, Thornton to present new films at Berlin festival
Angelina Jolie’s directorial debut about the Bosnian war and a drama made by and starring her ex-husband Billy Bob Thornton will feature at the Berlin film festival next month, organizers said Monday. Jolie will present her harrowing drama "In the Land of Blood and Honey" out of competition after winning praise in Bosnia for its …
Sun shines again for Woody Allen after ‘Midnight’
The chimes may have tolled midnight in Paris, but in Hollywood, it’s the dawn of another career revival for Woody Allen after his biggest hit in decades and a new round of awards accolades. How much will the success of "Midnight in Paris" change the filmmaker’s career? Not one bit, says Allen. In nearly 45 …
Akbar Ahmed’s interfaith mission, in poetry and prose
SHAWNEE MISSION, Kansas: Praising Ambassador Akbar Ahmed’s new book of poetry, “Suspended Somewhere Between: A Book of Verse,” Greg Mortenson, author of “Three Cups of Tea,” opined, “Anyone wanting to understand Islam today must read Akbar Ahmed’s collection. We are given rare glimpses into the dilemmas, pain and despair but ultimately love and hope of …
Damien Hirst connects the dots in global exhibit
British artist and self-marketing genius Damien Hirst looks to connect the dots in a big way with the opening Thursday of a global show for his body of colored spot paintings. The Gagosian Gallery network, with 11 locations in New York, London, Paris, Los Angeles, Rome, Athens, Geneva and Hong Kong, has been turned over …
Grand Egyptian Museum to open August 2015, says minister
CAIRO: Expected to be a “monument” in itself, the Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM) entered its third and final phase of construction this week and will open in August 2015, the minister of antiquities said on Tuesday. Mohamed Ibrahim, Egypt’s minister of antiquities, said at the signing ceremony that there will be no delays to “the …
Spielberg shares storytelling secrets in Paris
Steven Spielberg caught the filmmaking bug as a 12-year-old boy, and half a century on still goes "crazy" when he doesn’t have a story to tell, he admitted to fans packing a master class in Paris Monday night. Greeted with a standing ovation, the US director — whose works from "E.T" to "Indiana Jones" are …
Guggenheim gives nod to Helsinki museum
The foundation that administers the iconic Guggenheim museums has given Helsinki the go-ahead to build a state-of-the-art museum, city officials said Tuesday. The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation handed over its concept and development study to city officials on Tuesday, proposing that a new museum be built at a cost of €140 million ($179 million). "A …
Picasso stolen from Athens’ National Gallery
A Pablo Picasso painting gifted to Greece by the Spanish-born master was stolen from Athens’ National Gallery early Monday with two other important artworks, prompting scorn from the Greek police minister. "Woman’s Head," a 1939 oil on canvas, had been given by Picasso to the Greek state in 1949 in recognition of the country’s resistance …
Virtuoso pianist Alexis Weissenberg dies aged 82
Bulgarian-born French concert pianist Alexis Weissenberg, considered one of the great classical music performers of the 20th century, has died aged 82. After suffering from Parkinson’s disease for 30 years, Weissenberg died on Sunday in Lugano, Switzerland, Paris Orchestra artistic director Didier de Cottignies said. "A virtuoso musician and a big-hearted man who spared no …
Jackson kids to make dad’s footprint in Hollywood
Michael Jackson’s three children are to sink their father’s shoes and famous sequined glove into the cement outside a storied Hollywood cinema and tourist site, organizers said Thursday. In a rare public appearance, Prince, Paris and Blanket will make their late father’s mark in the cement outside the Grauman’s Chinese Theatre on January 26. The …
South African shop closes as books gather dust
By Jean Liou / AFP South Africa may have produced two Nobel laureates in literature but a famous bookshop in Johannesburg is nevertheless about to close, a victim of the country’s poor reading culture. The Boekehuis, whose Afrikaans name means “book house”, is in an old four-bedroom house a stone’s throw from the city’s two …
OCI, BESIX Group to begin work on third phase of Grand Egyptian Museum
CAIRO: A joint venture between Egypt’s Orascom Construction Industries (OCI) and the Belgian BESIX Group was awarded the contract for phase three of the Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM), a deal valued at $810 million. OCI said in a statement that the 50/50 joint venture was awarded the project on a turnkey basis and the final …
Bosnia’s top cultural institutions shutting down
Bosnia’s oldest and most prestigious cultural institutions have begun closing their doors one after another, thanks to long-standing disputes among politicians from its three ethnic groups and dwindling state funding. In 2011, the seven institutions — among them the 125-year-old National Museum whose collection includes the famed 600-year-old Jewish manuscript known as the Sarajevo Haggadah …
El-Semary perfects art of unraveling layers of history
Last year, the arts were largely not up to par, with a handful of exceptions that only just matched the events ablaze at the time. Concerned with levels of production, most galleries have put on a solid schedule of events that hope to crown this year one of change and progress. As usual, a pioneer …
Czech dissident writer Josef Skvorecky dies
Czech dissident writer and publisher Josef Skvorecky, who spent much of his life in Canada, died in Toronto on Tuesday, aged 87, CTK news agency reported. Skvorecky, who published the works of many dissident authors from his native Czechoslovakia including books by the late Czech president Vaclav Havel, was the founder of Sixty-Eight Publishers which …
Hockney takes a swipe at Hirst over work ethic
By AFP British painter David Hockney has criticized controversial fellow artist Damien Hirst for employing other people to help create his works of art, saying it was “insulting”. A poster for a major exhibition of landscapes by the 74-year-old Hockney opening in London this month reads: “All the works here were made by the artist …
Golden year for Klimt as Austria marks 150th anniversary
By Sim Sim Wissgott / AFP His golden “The Kiss” adorns scarves and coffee mugs worldwide, while his portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer sparked a decades-long restitution battle: in 2012, Austria celebrates 150 years since Klimt’s birth. Gustav Klimt, born on July 14, 1862, is one of the best known figures of the Jugendstil art period. In …
A Cuban African Odyssey with Egypt’s Jihan El-Tahri
By Myriam Ghattas Jihan El-Tahri is a French Egyptian national who had never screened her films in her own country, Egypt, until recently. This unfortunate oversight was thankfully corrected with her invitation to participate in the Fourth Panorama of the European Film, the lone Cairene film festival of the year that wrapped up at the end …
Viennese Cafe Icon Hawelka dead at 100
Andy Warhol stopped by for a cup of his coffee. So did princes, paupers, playwrights, poets and untold thousands for whom a visit to Vienna was unthinkable without a cup of steaming brew served by the bow-tied little man with the perpetual dancing smile. In this city of more than 1,900 cafes, Leopold Hawelka was …
Streep can’t save superficial ‘Iron Lady’
By Christy Lemire / AP The same problems that plagued “La Vie en Rose,” starring Marion Cotillard as Edith Piaf, exist in “The Iron Lady,” a biopic about Margaret Thatcher starring Meryl Streep as the former British prime minister. While both films feature strong performances from strong actresses playing strong, real-life women, the scripts are weakened …
Colosseum loses another chunk as restoration looms
The Colosseum lost another piece on Tuesday as Rome’s most famous monument deteriorates further ahead of a long-delayed restoration funded by an Italian billionaire now scheduled to start in March. The chunk of volcanic tuff fell from one of the iconic arches of the nearly 2,000-year-old structure – just two days after a similar incident …