275 Articles
CAIRO: The military trial of 19 activists arrested in Cairo on June 28 and 29 was adjourned Monday to Aug. 17 where a final verdict is expected. The trials of 13 protesters arrested in Alexandria on July 22 and of army officers arrested on April 8 in Tahrir were also adjourned to Aug. 22 for …
CAIRO: To identify and write about a problem and for 40 years watch as it deteriorates while the warning messages are ignored is a frustration economist Galal Amin is all too familiar with. He calls his 40-year-long writings on Egypt’s identity crisis as the nation grappled with a growing ‘foreign complex’ a Greek tragedy — …
As countries on the southern shore of the Mediterranean look north for assistance in economic development, the European Union is looking south for solutions for its increasing energy needs. In between, the European Investment Bank (EIB) has managed to facilitate such cooperation by financing the energy sector, among other fields, in the south with a …
CAIRO: The Treaty of Lisbon, which came into force in December 2009, doesn’t signal a change in European Union foreign policies, but it would be felt in few structural changes, Ambassador of the European Union Delegation in Cairo, H.E. Marc Franco told Daily News Egypt. In a press conference held last Monday to mark the …
Espionage and intelligence have always had a special appeal on screen where mystery and thrill are placed in a larger-than-life context along with the compulsory notions of nationalism and patriotism. The genre has proven specifically popular in Egypt, manifested in the millions of teenagers who bought Nabil Farouk’s pulp series “Ragol El-Mostaheel (Man of Impossible) …
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, fiancés 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 …
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 …
A young woman from a broke aristocratic family has to leave her bed-ridden lover (most probably due to tuberculosis or any other chest-related disease) to marry a richer, older man to save her family from debt and scandal. Sound familiar? Well, if you have been living on this planet in the past century, the answer …
Waving a sizable Egyptian flag, Samuel L. Jackson greeted journalists at the Sofitel Hotel, who had been waiting for him for almost an hour. But the grand entrance wasn’t the only unique feature of the Friday event. The press conference organized for the Cairo International Film Festival honoree was unlike that of his fellow Hollywood …
With his bestselling debut novel “Taxi, Khaled Alkhamissi emerged as a compelling storyteller in command of the world of colloquial Arabic, while his newspaper articles left readers in awe of his poetic language and eloquent analogies. The anticipation for his sophomore book was charged with high expectations. The wit that characterized Alkhamissi’s compilation of conversations …
CAIRO: We live in a world with so many gods and sometimes with no god at all. Even those who pride themselves on worshiping the same god do so each in their own way. The many faiths and sets of beliefs render any discussion of what’s religiously right or wrong irrelevant. But as social animals …
It’s always a pleasure to see Ahmed Ezz on the big screen; put his name on a poster and I’ll buy a ticket to the theater. Not only for his good looks, but Ezz has steadily matured as an actor over the years. It’s a delight to see what steps, big or small, he has …
CAIRO: This Thursday US President Barack Obama will address the Muslim World from Cairo University. But whether Muslims in Pakistan, Senegal and Germany will relate to his words as much as their counterparts in the Arab world, is yet to be determined. It isn’t clear whether Obama will address the Muslim world or just the …
CAIRO: Over six years ago, I sat in a Zamalek café with an American journalist discussing my decision to wear the veil. It was more than a year after Sept. 11, a time when the Iraq War – as part of the ongoing, American-led “War on Terror – was just a possibility and there was …
It’s common knowledge among Tarek Shahin’s friends that Omar, the protagonist of Al Khan, the daily comic strip Shahin authors, is his alter-ego. Omar has left a banking career in London to become the publisher of the fictional Al Khan magazine in Cairo. Meanwhile, Shahin continues to lead a career as an investment analyst living …
CAIRO: In Tahani Rashed’s award-winning “El Banat Dol (Those Girls), a documentary about street children, a teenage girl describes how she doesn’t fight back when men gang up and rape her, one after the other. By giving in to their assault, she explains, she avoids being locked up in a room to be raped repeatedly …
Infusing a socio-political theme into a satirical comedy is a feat many filmgoers thought comedy star Ahmed Eid is capable of. After all, his starring roles in “Film Thakafi (Educational Film) and “Lailat Seqout Baghdad (The Night Baghdad Fell) cemented his reputation as one of Egypt’s few film stars who could juggle between comedy and …
Hearing the buzz surrounding the release of Mohamed Heneidy’s new film “Ramadan Mabrouk Aboul Alamein Hamouda, I presumed Egypt’s former number one comedian finally sought redemption or is at least trying to make up for the unfunny, tasteless atrocities he had released over the past couple of years (“Wesh Igram is one film that comes …
It’s not easy taking a predictable story and throwing out the thriller element that represents its commercial appeal to focus instead on the human relations that make the fabric of the narrative. But it’s a feat that French director Safy Nebbou has learned to master. In 2004, his debut feature “Le Cou de la Girafe …
Gaile is a speech therapist and an eccentric character, who can only develop emotions when she sees herself on screen. Throughout the confusing 20 minutes it took audiences to discover this about the lead character of the Lithuanian feature “Kolekcionier (The Collectress), the slow-paced film seemed to wonder without direction. Gradually, obscurity turns into anticipation. …
As the guest of honor in this year’s Cairo International Film Festival, Spanish films have so far awed audiences with beautiful dramas, thrillers and romances. “Los Girasoles ciegos, (The Blind Sunflowers), one of Spain’s two entries in the festival’s International Competition and the Spanish contender for the Best Foreign Film Oscar nominations, is no different. …
For Asser Yassin, acting isn’t about creating a character from scratch, but rather searching within one’s self for certain traits that can be accentuated on screen. But when playing intense roles, such as drug addict Mohamed in his latest film “Zay El-Naharda (Just Like Today), this approach has had dire repercussions. “It’s very psychologically hectic, …
CAIRO: Relative calm has returned to the troubled Georgian provinces after the escalation of what was described as a “frozen conflict with Russia. Georgian Ambassador to Egypt Giorgi Janjgava, however, is skeptical of the ceasefire agreement as well as future relations between Georgia and Russia. “Who knows what will happen tomorrow? Janjgava said as he …
Last year, a Spanish court found two cartoonists guilty of offending the royal family by drawing a caricature of the Spanish crown prince having sex with his wife. They were fined ?3,000 each. “I don’t see the world up in arms defending freedom of expression, my editor told me after listening to the news on …
I couldn’t resist the catchy title. Apparently a lot of people couldn’t either. Those who hadn’t heard of Osama Gharib’s chart-topping book were initially taken aback by the first part of the title: “Egypt is not My Mother. Spread in large font over the head of a blank-faced belly dancer standing on a dim stage, …
As the opening credits of “Leilat El Baby Doll (Baby Doll Night) started rolling, my expectations rose with every name of the cast members emerging on screen. Each actor of this star-studded ensemble is capable of carrying a movie on their own – in fact they have done so repeatedly in the past. The list …
CAIRO: The Ministry of Interior holds around 18,000 administrative detainees in “degrading inhumane conditions, Amnesty International said in its 2008 report on human rights in Egypt. “Some had been held for more than a decade, including many whose release had been repeatedly ordered by courts, the report said. The report said the conditions in which …
Overlooking an investment portfolio that contains a number of successful businesses, Shahira Zeid could easily be mistaken for a workaholic. She, however, is not. “I just learned to work eight to 10 hours a day, she said, comfortably revealing her ‘secret.’ Zeid is the vice chairman and CEO of MZ Investments, a private equity group …