“Up in the Air has undergone the rarest of flights: It was delayed for a long time and its course was altered, yet it has arrived right on time. Up in the Air might be the timeliest movie of the year. Hard times and the frightening prospect of unemployment are at the center of the …
Freedom for Iran! With these defiant words Iranian dancer Afshin Ghaffarian ended a public performance and began a new life as an exiled dissident in Europe. The 23-year-old was arrested in Tehran after taking part in nationwide protests triggered by the June re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, which critics say was due to a rigged …
Taiwanese director Leon Dai s low budget family drama on Saturday swept the Golden Horse Film Awards, considered the Chinese-language Oscars, bagging the best picture and best director gongs. I want to thank my parents, my mentor Edward Yang and the actors of the film, an emotional Dai told the audience in Taipei. His No …
Last week, Egyptian audiences in Cairo and Alexandria were treated to highlights of the works of renowned American dance company Momix in the Cairo and Alexandria Opera Houses. “The Best of Momix presented chosen vintages from Moses Pendleton’s inimitable choreography, which he designed for the company that he started in 1981. Pendleton’s work, sometimes in …
Lebanon is to host its sixteenth annual European Film Festival from Thursday. The 2009 festival includes 34 European feature films, including prize-winning films screened at major international festival, EU charge d affaires Michael Miller told a news conference. The festival, which will also showcase 20 short films by Lebanese students, opens with a screening of …
Katherine Bakhoum is back once again exhibiting her latest art works in Safar Khan Gallery. Her work is quite popular among ardent art collectors in Egypt who wait patiently each year for her latest collection. Many paintings from the collection were purchased before the exhibit’s opening night earlier this month. And rightfully so; Bakhoum paints …
Alia Yunis’ debut novel “The Night Counter is a multi-plotted story chronicling the life of 85-year-old Fatima Abdullah, a Lebanese who immigrated to Detroit, the United States when she was a teen, as she strives to reconcile with her dysfunctional family during the last nine days of her life. In “The Counter, Yunis recreates the …
The King of Pop is still winning awards and setting records doing it. But while Michael Jackson won a record four posthumous awards, he couldn t beat Taylor Swift for top honors at Sunday night s American Music Awards. The 19-year-old was named the year s favorite artist, giving Jackson his only loss of the …
Forty years ago, Quentin Tarantino was just a young boy; the future great director was taken to a showing of Sam Peckinpah’s “The Wild Bunch. Set in 1913, the neo-western classic tells the story of a band of misogynistic and violent outlaws riding around the US-Mexican border looking for one final score. The aging gang …
Great Egyptian writer Tawfiq El-Hakim is one of Egypt’s most brilliant minds of the 20th century. His prolific career bridged several forms of writing: theater, fiction, political analysis, philosophical writings, journalism, short stories, biographies, religious ruminations and poetry. El-Hakim’s plays rank among his most exciting works. In more than 60 works, written between 1933 and …
Not even the Khartoum events could’ve saved the Cairo Film Fest. The closing ceremony of the 33rd edition attracted attention for Chairman of the fest Ezzat Abou Ouf and actor Fathy Abdel Wahab s overzealous speeches, for the livid remarks by Egyptian stars, for the protest that never materialized, but not for the movies. The …
CAIRO: Moroccan social entrepreneur Faiza Hajji Wozniak won first place in an eco-themed photo competition sponsored by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) in partnership with the Agence France-Presse Foundation and camera manufacturer Olympus. Wozniak received a certificate from UNDP, a digital camera and camera equipment from Olympus, in addition to a two-week internship at …
Four years after raking the Cairo International Film Festival’s top prize for his wartime drama “Mother of Mine, Finnish filmmaker Klaus Härö earned Friday his second Golden Pyramid for his fourth feature “Letters to Father Jacob. As the fest’s 33rd edition came to a close, Egyptian actor Fathy Abdel Wahab made headlines for his Best …
CAIRO: Lebanese pop singer Haifa Wahbe, who usually stirs controversy for her seductive outfits and provocative dancing, has been accused of singing a song with racist lyrics that compares black Egyptians to monkeys. Wehbe, considered by many as one of the sexiest women in the Arab world, has the minority Nubian community in Egypt distraught …
Films offer an opportunity to escape from reality, to be transported into a dream world, but Indian filmmaker Madhur Bhandarkar takes the road less traveled by, his films often a raw, gritty and realistic portrayal of society. Often accused of moral policing through his movies, Bhandarkar counters that his films “hold a mirror to society …
Egyptian director Magdy Ahmed Ali’s “Nile Birds is only the second feature based on a work by great Egyptian author Ibrahim Aslan, and the first in 18 years since Daoud Abdel Sayed’s “Kit Kat to reach Egyptian screens. Aslan’s fans will be relieved to learn that Ahmed Ali has crafted a faithful adaptation of Aslan’s …
Currently at El Masar Gallery is a holistic exhibition celebrating the human body titled “Il Corpus Homanus. Regardless of the fact that both the use of Leonardo Da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man on the cover of the exhibition’s catalogue and invitation, as well as titling it in Latin was somewhat irrelevant, the work on display was …
Eleven feature films in 37 years – the filmography of Adoor Gopalakrishnan, the head of the Cairo International Film Festival’s international competition jury and renowned Indian filmmaker, may seem an anomaly in this era of highly prolific directors. But as he puts it, “I cannot make a film without real inspiration. I do not want …
Here’s a film that treats the issue of Arab immigration to the US with lightheartedness, precision and heartfelt compassion. Palestinian-Jordanian director Cherien Dabis’ debut feature “Amreeka is the first film to deal with the Arab-American experience from a realistic, grounded perspective devoid of the superlatives and self-pity that marred similar previous efforts. Set in 2003, …
For the most part of Neri Marcorè’s career, he has been known as a comedian. But the actor got his first shot with drama in director Pupi Avati’s “Il cuore altrove (The Heart is Elsewhere) in 2003. The role helped him get out of the TV comedian and impersonator shell. His third collaboration with the …
It might seem like a macho bar, with no wives, fiancĂ©s or girlfriends allowed inside. But Bar Margherita is, for those who give it a closer look, a place where friendships are made, where mistakes are ultimately forgiven, and where the bonds holding its patrons together remain unbreakable. The Italian film “Gli amici del bar …
It’s difficult to classify the Lithuanian film “Vortex; on one hand the story is grounded in a grim reality, and on the other, many scenes veer towards the artistic, the abstract and sometimes the surreal. Set during the reign of the Soviet Union in the last century, the suffering of the characters is inescapable. But …
I Believe In Angels Director: Niksa SvilicicStarring: Vedran Mlikota, Dolores Lambasa, Aljosa Vuckovic and Marija KohnSynopsis: The mailman, Sime, is one of the most popular inhabitants of a small Croatian town. Sime is very intelligent and the locals have high regards for him because he is unusually well versed in all the events and destinies …
WASHINGTON: The hardening of the arteries associated with heart attacks and strokes is not just a modern phenomenon, according to new research showing ancient Egypt s pharaohs suffered from heart disease too. Atherosclerosis is ubiquitous among modern day humans and, despite difference in ancient and modern lifestyles, we found that it was rather common in …
Iraq’s entry in the Cairo International Film Festival hit the right notes with Egyptian audiences, not for its plot or its script, but due to its employment of elements that were too close to home. “Dawn of the World, an Iraqi-French production, was shot in Egypt, using rising Egyptian artists in front as well as …
In 2005, Finnish filmmaker Klaus Härö pulled off what some critics deemed as a surprise Golden Pyramid win for his heartbreaking wartime drama “Mother of Mine. I wouldn’t be surprised if Härö scored another best picture win this year for his fourth feature “Letters to Father Jacob, a pitch-perfect little drama about faith, forgiveness and …
The Hedgehog Director: Mona Achache. Starring: Josiane Balasko, Garance Le Guillemic, Togo Igawa and Anne Brochet. Paloma is the daughter of a snobbish mother and a distracted father, both of whom largely ignore her. She has decided that rather than succumb to the mediocrity of the life around her, she will commit suicide on a …
Traffic Signal Director: Madhur Bhandarkar. Starring: Kunal Khemu, Neetu Chandra and Upendra Limaye.Once an orphan abandoned at a traffic light on a busy crossroad, Silsila is now its boss, managing all the opportunists who work his territory. Collecting protection money for local Mafioso, Haji, he connects the poor folk who survive by selling their bodies …
Even though there has been a glut of films about the victims of terrorist attacks and those arrested on mere suspicion, the subject is still a rich soil that can yield more. The quality of such films largely depends on the freshness of the perspective. Is it a new approach to the story? Is the …
