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Why doesn’t the crocodile fly? : Meet the winners of Sawiris’ 18th Cultural Award, celebrated on 08th January 2023.
The annual event was held at Ewart Memorial Hall of the Tahrir Cultural Center, downtown Cairo.
The event was attended by many cultural and literature figures and artists and included a performance by the popular musical troupe Masar Igbari.
A New Prize
The event kicked off at 7 pm with a short speech by movie star Mahmoud Hemeda, followed by a mini-documentary celebrating 20 years of Sawiris Foundation’s contribution to social development through influencing the lives of about 700,000 people throughout Egypt.
Renowned Doctor and scholar Mohamed Abul-Ghar, member of the award’s board of trustees, introduced a special prize that went to the posthumously released book of late journalist Mohamed Abul-Gheit, titled ” I am Coming, Light”. Prominent writer Mohamed Shoeir, deputy of Akhbar El-Adab magazine, was the one who suggested that the prize go to Abul-Gheit’s book even though it hadn’t been on the list of entries for the competition. Abul-Gheit had been a celebrated journalist who passed away this December after a battle with cancer. The prize, which is worth EPG 150,000, will be given to his wife and child.
Children Books
The prize for Best Children’s book under 12 years old was a tie between writer Ahmed Korany’s book Lemaza La yateer Al Timsah (Why Doesn’t the Crocodile Fly?), illustrated by Nemma Zidan, and writer Ashraf Abul-Yazid’s book Qetati Toalef Ketaba ( My Cat Writes a Book).
Critic and Narrative books
The prize for Best Critic and Narrative writings was also a tie between renowned poet Bahaa Jaheen, for his book Al Molk Wal Malek (The Creation and Creator), and writer Magdy Gergis for his book Al-Moalem Ibrahim Al-Gohary.
Play Script
The first prize for best play script went to playwright Ahmed Nabih for his play Nozhet El-Sindbad fi Dawayer Baghdad (Sinbad’s Voyage in the Circles of Baghdad). The second prize for best play script went to playwright Emad Motawaa for his play Mosiqa Hadiaa (Soft Music).
Screen Play
The prize for Best Screenplay, youth section, went to screenwriter Mohamed Al-Samman for his script Ardioon (Earth People).
The prize for Best Screenplay, older generation, went to screenwriters Ahmed Hawari and Ibrahim Al-Battout for their script Hekayet Risha w Samaka (The Story of a Feather and a Fish)
Best Novel and Short stories
The first prize for best Novel and Short stories, youth section, went to writer Mohamed Sorour for his short stories Thalath Fekhakh le Zeab Awar (Three Traps for a One Eyed Wolf). The second prize for best Novel and Short stories, youth section, went to writer Mohamed El-Barmy for his short stories Lel Mohebein Wal Awghad wa Qotaa Al Toroq ( For the Lovers, the Bastards and the Villains)
The first Prize for best Novel, youth section, went to novelist Sharl Aql for his novel Ahmar Lareng (Larenge Red ).
The second Prize for best Novel, youth section, went to novelist Ahmed Ibrahim Ismail for his novel Abu Gamea.
The first prize for Novel and Short stories, older generation, went to novelist Shady Louis for his novel Tarikh Mogaz lel Khalifa wa Sharq Al Qahera (A Brief History of Al Khalifa District and East Cairo). The novelist, however, announced later last night that although grateful for winning such an award, he will give it back.
The second prize for Novel and Short stories, older generation, went to writer Ahmed Abdel-Latif for his short stories The Kingdom of Mark Zuckerberg and his Fictional Birds.
The first Arab exhibition for productive families, Bayt Al-Arab (House of the Arabs) opened in Cairo in the presence of Ahmed Aboul Gheit, the Arab League secretary-general, and several Egyptian and Arab officials, including a high-ranking Saudi delegation.
The products at the exhibition reflect the identity of the 12 participating Arab countries.
It offers an important opportunity to learn about the richness of the cultures of these countries in craftwork and handicrafts in order to protect these industries from extinction.
The number of participants featuring at the exhibition is about 150, of which 70 are Egyptian and 80 from other Arab countries.
The exhibition, which continues until Jan. 11, opens areas for the exchange of expertise between craftsmen, producers and exhibitors.
Saeed Al-Zahrani, head of the Saudi delegation, shared with the audience at the opening ceremony a number of success stories, and said the participation of the Social Development Bank aimed at supporting and empowering micro-enterprises for family businesses, which are considered a fundamental pillar of the Kingdom’s Vision 2030.
At the Saudi pavilion, visitors were drawn to the heritage products of various regions of the Kingdom, such as Al-Sadu weaving, Al-Qat Al-Asiri, and the manufacture of Al-Masleh, in addition to the products of many Saudi family businesses displayed within the Tagseed (incarnation) initiative, which is marketed for home projects in all international and local exhibitions.
Nevin Al-Kilani, Egypt’s culture minister, said that the participation of dozens of families from Egypt and the Arab world was “the best evidence of Egypt’s keenness to support heritage both locally and regionally.”
Raef Al-Khouli, an official involved in the organization of the exhibition, told Arab News: “The Arab House exhibition in the Dome Palace is a wonderful opportunity to visit because there are many handicrafts from all Arab countries, which are sold at very reasonable prices, because all who are present are the owners of the profession or craft, and are not merchants.”
At the entrance, Al-Khouli said, visitors can register their names and phone numbers, and will receive entry for free, taking a dedicated bus to the exhibition venue.
Al-Khouli added: “At the Saudi pavilion there is a wonderful medal that the visitors can buy. It is a commemorative medal for the door of the Kaaba and the door of the Prophet’s Mosque.
“On the sidelines, there is a large theater and artistic performances are held in it throughout the day,” Al-Khouli said, adding that visiting families could bring children as well, because there is a play area and many drawing and coloring activities.
source/content: arabnews.com (headline edited)
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The first Arab exhibition for productive families, which continues in Egyptian capital Cairo until Jan. 11, opens areas for the exchange of expertise between craftsmen, producers and exhibitors. (Supplied)
In our continuing series on inspiring life stories across continents, we learn what made her leave a career in medical science for a ‘cuisine lab called the kitchen’.
When Lamees Ibrahim left Baghdad in the 1970s, certain parts of the city, not least the riverside strip of fish restaurants along Abu Nawas, became a fixed ideal in her memory.
After an interval of three decades, a return to the flat bank of the Tigris in 2004 was an unexpected low point in a thoroughly disturbing homecoming.
The street once the “pomegranate of Baghdad” was no longer filled with diners being entertained by poets and musicians, engulfed in the aroma of arguably Iraq’s national dish, masgouf.
Instead, Dr Ibrahim stood shaken as she took in a rubble-strewn wasteland populated by a handful of struggling fish sellers.
Yet one sense was still powerfully triggered by the fresh carp grilling over the charred wood.
“It was not in very good shape,” she tells The National. “There were only bits of its old self left, but the smell was still amazing. There are certain scents that you smell and you think, ‘Wow, this is Baghdad.’ It is very, very specific. If you enjoy samak masgouf once, you will never forget it.”
Dr Ibrahim had made a long, hazardous journey from her home in London, where she moved decades earlier: marrying, earning a PhD in Pathology, raising four children.
Her husband was with her as she set out from Jordan in a car just after Fajr prayers that day, to “feel” her land, see her extended family, and show her eldest child, Maysa, her ancestral roots.
But the Baghdad conjured up by the smell of the barbecued fish was gone; the deserted, bombed-out streets were not at all familiar to her. They did, however, bring back one particularly strong recollection from childhood.
Sometimes in the summer months, the young Lamees would gather with her three siblings around their father to be regaled by stories about Iraq.
“I remember one day when he said: ‘Look, we built this country, the Iraqis, and we have to keep doing that. If every one of us contributed their own brick then the wall would go up and up, and we should keep on building.’ I never forgot that,” Dr Ibrahim said, “and I felt that we had to add our little brick to the wall. We had to make Iraq keep going.”
She returned to London on a mission to help rebuild Iraq in some way for the younger generations that would never have a chance to experience what it had been in the golden years.
The need to describe the country’s rich history and accomplishments was urgent, but whatever she put down on paper seemed inextricably tied to cooking. So it was that she came to realise it would be through food that she could preserve connections to things past.
“I wanted to write something, I needed to write, I had to write,” she says. “So I started. Eventually, it became a cookbook with a bit of history and anecdotes about culture, about civilisation.
“My background has nothing to do with cooking. It’s not cuisines of any kind, but I have a passion for Iraq. It’s my motherland, my country.”
When the 21-year-old Lamees had come to London in the early 1970s, it was to pursue a postgraduate medical degree at King’s College and then head back to her beloved Baghdad. Soon after arriving, she married and her life, she says, became busy but limited as she immersed herself in studying and research projects.
“You go to college, you study, you attend lectures, you come home, you open the books, read, read, read, have some dinner, and go back to college,” she says.
“I didn’t know that I was homesick until one day during Ramadan I saw an elderly woman going into King’s College Hospital with her black abaya and veil. I said to her ‘marhaba hajji’ and she was shocked. She hugged me, and I went home, crying all the way.
“I cried because I had a goal. I wanted to get a degree, and the sooner I got it, the sooner I could go back home. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen.”
She was haunted by her homeland, by such memories as the heady perfume of jasmine and the days in her youth when the children would pick the flowers and turn them into long necklaces.
But the months turned into years, and years into decades. At first, returning to Baghdad was difficult as the academic successes mounted and her family grew. It became impossible when Saddam Hussein came to power, with Dr Ibrahim fearing that she would be detained were she to attempt a visit, and never see her three daughters and son again.
Her father died and then, on news of the death of her mother, Dr Ibrahim made the fateful trip when she found a country that was “not what I was expecting, of course. It was demolished, devastated.”
The resulting homage, The Iraqi Cookbook, was published in 2009, a labour of love with the name of each dish painstakingly recorded in Arabic. Samak masgouf, of course, features, and Dr Ibrahim advises in the foreword that all visitors to Iraq should try it in one of the cafes and restaurants on the bank of the Tigris.
“I came back to London with one idea in mind, which is something that as a girl I grew up to learn,” she says. “I must do something for my country. I need to tell my children what my country is like, our history, our culture, our ability to do what we did in the old days.”
She is speaking by Zoom from her home in Richmond-Upon-Thames, her voice at times faltering and cracking with emotion as she talks about dedicating herself to bringing Iraq to the diaspora.
“Iraq to me is very important, very important,” Dr Ibrahim says. “It is in my blood. It’s in my genes. It’s my history.”
The book sold out in the UK and the US, and was reprinted by popular demand. Bit by bit, the time-consuming process of writing and re-writing, working with publishers and photographers, the press interviews had taken Dr Ibrahim away from her career in pathology.
“And I never went back,” she says. “I’m still very interested. I read a lot about Covid. I follow the research, but I’m not going back to that lab. I have a cuisine lab called the kitchen.”
With the emergence of the pandemic, Dr Ibrahim revisited experiments that she had begun as a teenager when she would try to make her mother’s recipes without meat. Sometimes it was successful, she acknowledges, sometimes not.
As a child, though, she had never been as fond of lamb as her siblings were. The family cat adored her, loitering under the table at lunchtimes for the morsels of the daily stew that Lamees would sneak down to her.
During lockdown, her own children became “guinea pigs” for her avant-garde creations as Dr Ibrahim collected together an array of vegan offerings that would appeal to a young audience interested in preserving the planet.
“Dishes don’t need to have meat to have the taste and flavour, for it to smell like an Iraqi dish,” she says. “Iraqi cooking can be vegan, as well as meat and fish-centric.
“If you can preserve the taste of the flavour of the dish, go for it. Many Iraqi dishes are, in fact, vegan but we ate them before ever knowing the word ‘vegan’.”
When one of Dr Ibrahim’s friends called to see how she was faring with the tight coronavirus restrictions in the capital, she told him she had been busily cooking all the recipes to be photographed for The Iraqi Vegan Cookbook. Curious, he wanted to know whether she was including any kubba, knowing that Dr Ibrahim had devoted an entire chapter to its many meaty variants in her first book.
On learning that the new book would contain Kubbet Jeriesh, Kubbet Halab and another recipe that Dr Ibrahim made from lentils, he answered: “Only three?”
His grandmother, he said, had never enjoyed meat in her kubba so the family reinvented the dish to suit her preferences, stuffing the shells with pine nuts, onion, spices and parsley.
“If all these years ago we had vegan Iraqis, we have plenty today,” Dr Ibrahim says, smiling.
The Iraqi Vegan Cookbook had been due out on December 31, but the release has been delayed not least because of the queues of hauliers that built up in Calais and Dover as a result of Brexit and the French shutdown of the border when the new strain of the coronavirus emerged in the UK.
Rescheduled for release at the end of January, Dr Ibrahim hopes that sharing more of the oldest cuisine in the world will counter some of the negative perceptions that persist about Iraq today.
“Iraq is positive,” she says. “Iraq is full of history, full of culture. This is the cradle of civilisation. I don’t like to talk about what’s going on now. I would like to talk about the positivity of all of our achievements.
“I feel nowadays, if I add that little brick, then I have added something which I would be proud of as an Iraqi living in the West. Living in Iraq, we can build from within. We are living in the West – all my children are also living in the West, but we add our bricks from our side, from outside the country.”
Dr Ibrahim is modest about her contribution to the wall that her father told her about all those years ago, hesitating to use the word achievement. If her writing can be described as such, she says, she wants to make clear that it was never about her. It was always for Iraq.
Dr Lamees Ibrahim has dedicated herself to bringing the country of her birth to the diaspora: ‘Iraq is very important to me. It is in my blood. It is in my genes. It is my history,’ she says. Courtesy of The Mosaic RoomsThe homage to Dr Ibrahim’s homeland, ‘The Iraqi Cookbook’, was published in 2009, a labour of love with the name of each dish painstakingly recorded in Arabic. Courtesy Lamees Ibrahim
Mawadah Muhtasib, an emerging Saudi artist who reversed the typeface of the Arabic language, is well on her way to becoming a prominent name in the global art scene.
From learning her mother’s technique of writing backward at age 13 to exhibiting in London and New York City, Muhtasib has generated international intrigue in the art of Arabic by creating the first reversed Arabic calligraphy, or calligraffiti, typeface.
Her messages are not only meant to be read, but are also designed to be deciphered. Engaging her audience with the challenge of decoding letters is a large part of experiencing the artwork itself.
“It’s about expanding your human capabilities into creating the impossible. And this is exactly what I have been trying to do,” she told Arab News in an exclusive interview.
FASTFACT
The Arabic language is one of the richest art forms, the artist says, but in modernity, it is difficult to appreciate the depths of something that has become so ordinary.
Born out of a quest to layer the heritage of Arabic letters with innovative graffiti art methods, her work dares to be the first of its kind, granting her Dubai’s Art Bus competition award and a chance to show her work at exclusive showcases.
As graffiti art surged in popularity in 2013, Muhtasib experimented with mural painting alongside a novel group, hoping to develop a boundaryless form of art.
With a vision to modernize the traditional, she created a decorative typeface that mixed Arabic and Latin, written from left to right.
It’s about expanding your human capabilities into creating the impossible.
Mawadah Muhtasib
Muhtasib said: “We are so used to Arabic calligraphy when it comes to Thuluth calligraphy, Al-Kufi, Al-Naskh, and so on, and we just read that way and pass it on.
“When I’m doing my Arabic calligraphy, people sit and stare at my work for hours trying to figure out what these letters are, and the moment they realize it’s Arabic, they start to analyze and see all these letters in a different form that we as Arabic speakers are not used to.”
The Arabic language is one of the richest art forms, the artist says, but in modernity, it is difficult to appreciate the depths of something that has become so ordinary.
The goal is not only to get the viewer to read but to actively reflect on the beauty and form of each stroke and letter within the alphabet.
Muhtasib now passes on her craft through community workshops exclusively for women, most recently at Saudi’s largest light-based festival, Noor Riyadh.
“In my workshops, I do not teach people to write in reverse … I’m basically giving you the key of how to use the tools of starting to practice in the form of Latin calligraphy,” she said.
As soon as students understand the anatomy of the font family, Muhtasib introduces slanted brushes, layering techniques and stroke pressure. From the first session, students are sent home with a new creative form of expression. “The soul of a person is laid out on a page,” she said.
Writing in reverse is not new; the artist’s mother passed down the habit after having to write backward to maintain privacy at work. Alongside that, she passed down her passion for creative innovation.
While most calligraphers in the Kingdom were mimicking Western methods, Muhtasib, at 16 years old, was inspired and encouraged by Tunisian artist eL Seed and Saudi Moroccan artist Shaker Kashgari.
“I took that trick that my mom taught me years ago on how to write and then I changed it into a decorative typeface,” she said.
The concept was designed to preserve the rich heritage of the Arabic language. For foreigners, it offers a chance to engage in the language and learn its history.
“This is Arabic calligraphy in reverse that I took, improved, adjusted and made into a different form. But viewers will also wonder how it actually looked like (originally) and this will make a lot of people go in-depth and learn more about Arabic calligraphy,” Muhtasib said.
The philosophy behind the Typeform has gained interest from international luxury brands such as Louis Vuitton, Carolina Herrera, Montblanc, Sephora and more, resulting in several collaborations.
Muhtasib urges creators to push the boundaries of art and culture.
With calligraphy, “your sky’s the limit,” she said.
source/content: arabnews.com (headline edited)
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Mawadah Muhtasib now passes on her craft through community workshops exclusively for women. (Supplied)
The Sheikh Zayed Festival witnessed an intense public turnout that exceeded the barrier of one million visitors, followers and viewers of the festival, who gathered in the Al Wathba area, coming from inside and outside the country, to celebrate the welcome of the New Year 2023.
The various events attracted visitors, especially the huge fireworks and drone shows, where 4 records were broken in the Guinness Book of Records.
The festival squares were crowded with crowds, and the Al Wathba area was filled with followers and viewers of the drone shows and fireworks, which lasted for about 60 minutes for the first time, for the Guinness Book of Records to record this great achievement.
Amid feelings of happiness and joy, the largest fireworks display and the largest drone show lit up the sky of Al Wathba. The largest fireworks display, which lasted for more than 40 continuous minutes and broke three records in the Guinness Book of Records in terms of quantity, time and shape, won the admiration of visitors. In addition to the largest display of “Drones”, using more than 3,000 drones, a message was drawn in the sky of Al Wathba, welcoming the New Year at the end of its interesting show.
Al-Waleed Othman, an arbitrator of the Guinness Book of Records, confirmed that the Sheikh Zayed Festival was able to break 4 records at the same time, 3 of which are related to fireworks and a new record related to “Drones”, explaining that the most number of helicopter fireworks thrown in 30 seconds or more was recorded. The number of fireworks launched in 30 seconds (wheels), the most repeated fireworks in 30 seconds, in addition to the largest formation of a quick response code by drones.
Othman said: We are pleased to be present at the Sheikh Zayed Festival in the New Year’s celebrations, and we extend our congratulations to the organizers of the festival, who used to break records annually in order to please the audience.
The festival’s audience was keen to document the wonderful moments of the various shows on their mobile phones and share them on social media. The impressive performances were also broadcasted on the festival’s social media.
The Emirates Fountain and laser performances won the admiration of the festival-goers, young and old, with their dazzling musical and laser shows.
The Pavilions of World Civilizations also allocated a lot of international artistic and folklore shows, turning the festival into a global artistic carnival in celebration of New Year’s Eve, whether by holding concerts on the stages of the Pavilions of Civilizations or by participating in the march of world civilizations that roamed all parts of the festival, presenting popular performances in traditional clothes of countries. participation.
Visitors to the Sheikh Zayed Festival expressed their happiness with the international and diverse folklore and artistic events and performances, including the activities of the Heritage Village, the city of recreational games, the children’s city, the arts area, go-karting competitions, Crazy Cars, the Garden of Lights and Flowers, in addition to the Selfie Street area, the Museum of Sweets and many others.
William Mullally picks the best movies by Arab filmmakers over the past year.
‘Perfect Strangers’
Director: Wissam Smayra
Starring: Mona Zaki, Nadine Labaki, Georges Khabbaz
The original Italian version of “Perfect Strangers” had already been remade across the world before its Arabic-language iteration was released on Netflix. But nowhere else has it caused the stir that it did in the Middle East. The conceit is simple: Seven friends at a dinner party decide to play a game, placing their phones in the center of the table to make their calls and messages known to all. As the night goes on, their secrets are revealed, upending everything they thought they knew about each other. Not only was this the best version of the film so far, with pitch-perfect casting and memorable performances, it was also the bravest: each of its stars pushed themselves in ways they had never been able to in regional film previously, shattering taboos, capturing the world’s attention and changing Arab cinema forever.
The highest grossing film in the history of Egyptian cinema, “Kira & El Gin” is Marwan Hamed at his best. This is a crowd-pleasing historical epic that not only captures the spirit of Egypt past and present, but sets a course for a new future for the country’s film industry. Following two men fighting the British occupation in Egypt during the 1919 revolution, Hamed’s film rarely sags despite its nearly three-hour run time and sprawling cast, structured more as a suspense thriller than a social studies lecture. As Hamed jumps from genre to genre across his films, proving equally adept at each, one wonders how he will top this, should he try. But it would be foolish to bet against him as he continues to notch up career high after career high.
‘Boy From Heaven’
Director: Tarik Saleh
Starring: Fares Fares, Tawfeek Barhom, Mohammad Bakri
Egyptian-Swedish filmmaker Tarik Saleh has a bone to pick. Growing up in Europe, he was always labeled as ‘other’ — an idea reinforced in the books in his school library describing Arabs as “stupid” and “uncivilized.” Now firmly entrenched as a filmmaker, Saleh refuses to make films tailored to the Western gaze, turning his camera deep into the inner workings of Egyptian society and forcing international viewers to accept that they are seeing things through eyes that are not their own. In “Boy from Heaven,” Saleh goes deep into a corruption scandal at the influential Al-Azhar Mosque, following a hero whose strong Muslim faith is unrattled as he uncovers the evils hiding from plain sight, with scenes and images you won’t soon forget.
‘The Alleys’
Director: Bassel Ghandour
Starring: Maisa Abd Elhadi, Nadia Omran, Munther Rayahna
In 2014’s “Theeb,” Jordanian writer Bassel Ghandour crafted perhaps the greatest example of the Bedouin Western in cinema history. With “The Alleys,” Ghandour steps into the director’s chair for the first time and turns the streets of Amman into the setting for a modern noir, in which the darkness hiding in the city’s back streets slowly boils to the surface. The film’s sprawling nature is both benefit and detriment, but it’s a stirring snapshot nonetheless, elevated by star-making performances from Maisa Abd Elhadi and Nadia Omran.
‘You Resemble Me’
Director: Dina Amer
Starring: Dina Amer, Mouna Soualem, Lorenza Grimaudo
Filmmaker Dina Amer is most familiar to global audiences for her fearless journalism in 2013’s “The Square” and various Vice News stories she produced as their foreign correspondent from the front lines of regional conflicts. “You Resemble Me” cements her as a filmmaker to watch, as her harrowing experimental recounting of the life of Hasna Ait Boulahcen, the woman miscredited as Europe’s first suicide bomber, is a deeply affecting dissection of the roots of terrorism and the racism that Arab women face in Europe. One of the most original films released this year.
The story of Yusra and Sara Mardini, two sisters from Syria who risked their lives to escape conflict for a better future only for one of them to become an Olympian, is so powerful that a film capturing their story could not help but be inspirational. El-Hosaini, the Welsh-Egyptian filmmaker behind 2012’s excellent “My Brother the Devil,” made it into something more — a thought-provoking reframing of the refugee experience at a time when Syrians and many others still suffer from that stigma, as well as a chronicle of women’s empowerment as the structures that held them back crumble, all told with a light touch that never alienates the huge global viewership the Netflix film has enjoyed.
‘Mediterranean Fever’
Director: Maha Haj
Starring: Amer Hlehel, Ashraf Farha, Anat Hadid
Palestinian cinema is often, understandably, a no-holds-barred dissection of the plight of its people. But that is by no means its only manifestation, as Maha Haj, a previous collaborator with renowned satirist Elia Suleiman, proves with her latest feature, “Mediterranean Fever,” the follow up to her acclaimed 2016 feature “Personal Affairs.” Haj focuses here on smaller human problems, following an aspiring writer who suffers from depression and befriends a small-time crook living next door. At times comedic, the film drifts into dark territory while always keeping its audience guessing. After winning best screenplay at Cannes in 2022, Haj has confirmed herself as one of the region’s most singular voices.
There is no more versatile actor working in Arab cinema today than Palestinian actor Saleh Bakri, who, with Touzani’s “The Blue Caftan,” has capped off a tremendous run of eight films in the last two years, including Farah Nabulsi’s Oscar-nominated “The Present” and Mohammed Diab’s “Amira.” This is perhaps his best performance yet. He plays Halim, a struggling master tailor in Morocco whose life is turned upside down when he and his wife take in a young apprentice. Stealing the strikingly-filmed show, however, is his co-star Lubna Azabal as his wife Mina, who is quietly enduring her own private battle with breast cancer as she and her husband struggle to communicate. With this and 2019’s “Adam,” Touzani is already one of Morocco’s great chroniclers.
‘Raven Song’
Director: Mohamed Al-Salman
Starring: Asem Alawad, Ibrahim Alkhairallah, Abdullah Aljafal
The singular contemporary Gulf filmmaker Mohamed Al-Salman is not making films so that the world may understand Saudi Arabia — he’s making them so that Saudi Arabia may understand itself. “Raven Song,” his debut feature after years of acclaimed shorts, is a stylish jump back to 2002 in the Kingdom, a formative time for both the filmmaker and his country, in which the fight between traditionalism and modernity was so heated that it manifested prominently even in the world of poetry. At times dream-like, “Raven Song” is a film that defies definition, with interpretations likely to roll in for years to come.
A new modern landmark in the capital of the Kingdom, the Light Ball, has been named by Guinness World Records as the largest illuminated LED ball in the world, with an estimated height of 35 meters.
Located at Boulevard World, the exterior of the ball emanates bright lighting that flickers in different patterns, while the interior boasts a 220-seat theater equipped with state-of-the-art features.
Guests can recline in their seats facing a 360-degree circular screen. The short films presented in the theater are five minutes long, with varying genres suitable for families to enjoy. The shows run every 30 minutes daily from 3:30 p.m. to 10:30 p.m.
In addition to cultural experiences, Boulevard World includes the largest artificial lake in the world. Visitors can take part in boat and submarine rides in the lake — a first for Riyadh Season.
There are also distinctive entertainment options, such as Combat Village, Super Hero, the largest sphere in the world and cable car trips between Boulevard World and its neighboring zone, Boulevard Riyadh City.
The zone offers visitors other entertainment experiences as well, such as Boulevard Pier, Discovery, Realistic Monopoly, The Mountain, Area 15, Ninja Warriors and Fun Zone for children.
source/contents: arabnews.com (headline edited)
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Located at Boulevard World, the exterior of the ball emanates bright lighting that flickers in different patterns, while the interior boasts a 220-seat theater equipped with state-of-the-art features. (Supplied)
A multifunctional snow park was opened at the Mall of Oman. The project Snow Oman is the largest in the Middle East. The snow park was developed by Majid Al Futtaim, who has experience building indoor snow and ski amusements. In 2005 the company unveiled its first project in the flagship Mall Al Futtaim and later realized the mega project Ski Dubai in the Mall of the Emirates.
The total area of Snow Oman is 160 000 square feet. The complex combines a variety of winter attractions, the country’s first colony of penguins, and natural snow. The main decorations are an ice port town and a sunken ship with a lighthouse.
Rides include Mountain Thriller, Snow Bullet, Slide Winder, Cloud Climber, and Zorb Ball, unique attractions such as Cold Town Muscat, and a 5112-square feet ice rink. Admission to the park starts at 12.5 OMR, equivalent to $32.5.
Snow Oman caters to guests of all ages and offers activities for both kids and thrill-seekers. Outside the ski and skate slopes are cafes with hot winter drinks, warm seating, and a photo area.
Majid Al Futtaim is one of the largest mall, retail, and entertainment companies in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia. The company operates 29 malls, 13 hotels, and four mixed-use complexes in the UAE, as well as more than 600 cinemas and several entertainment centers.
Egyptian mezzo soprano Farrah El-Dibany has performed La Marseillaise the French national anthem, in the beginning of the final FIFA World Cup match against Argentine in Doha, Qatar on Sunday.
Farrah El-Dibany has sang during the re-election of Emmanuel Macron on April 24.
She was awarded France’s Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in the grade of Chevalier (Knight) by France’s Ambassador to Cairo Marc Baréty during an official ceremony in April.
Born in Alexandria in 1989, El-Dibany is one of the well-known Egyptian singers of her generation, establishing herself on an international scale in a short time.
She is the Arab world’s greatest living musical icon, but Fayrouz remains an enigma. She retains a sometimes-infuriating aura of mystery, rarely giving interviews and ardently protecting the privacy of her family. On stage she appears devoid of emotion — motionless and expressionless. Those characteristics have themselves become iconic, with Fayrouz’s striking but emotionless features adorning everything from handbags and posters to Beirut’s city walls.
Born Nouhad Haddad in 1934, during the course of her career Fayrouz has recorded hundreds of songs, starred in dozens of musicals and movies, and toured the world. From 1957 onwards, when she first performed at the Baalbeck International Festival, she has become one of the Arab world’s most beloved singers. And in doing so she would unite her often-fractious homeland.
All Lebanese remember the first time they heard Fayrouz. For Tania Saleh, it was during a drive to Syria to escape the beginning of the Lebanese Civil War. She remembers one song in particular — “Roudani Ila Biladi” (Take Me Back To My Homeland).
“That song really marked me,” says Saleh, a singer-songwriter and visual artist. “My mother was crying while she was driving and the song created this really intense emotional moment. And I remember thinking, ‘How can a song affect someone so much? It’s just a song.’ But it affected me, too, in a manner that I didn’t understand back then.”
Fayrouz remained in Lebanon for the entirety of the war and refused to take sides. Although she continued to sing in venues across the world, she did not perform in Lebanon until the conflict was over. This neutrality, and the patriotic nature of many of her songs, meant she was a rare symbol of national unity, with all sides listening to her music throughout the 15 years of civil war. She was, as Saleh says, an “emotional anchor for all Lebanese during the war,” regardless of religion or political beliefs. When she released “Li Beirut“ (arranged and adapted by her son Ziad Rahbani) in 1984, Fayrouz and Beirut became inseparable. More than ever she embodied the very essence of what it meant to be Lebanese.
None of which would have been possible without the music of the Rahbani Brothers. Fayrouz, who was a chorus singer at Radio Lebanon in the early 1950s, met Mansour and Assi Rahbani through the composer Halim El-Roumi in 1951. She went on to marry Assi a few years later and together the trio would revolutionize popular Lebanese music. The Rahbani Brothers fused musical genres, including Levantine folkloric traditions and the music of Latin America, and incorporated both Western and Russian elements into their compositions. It was Fayrouz, however, who gave voice to their musical vision.
Fayrouz sang of an almost mythical Lebanon. She sang of love and desire, but also of an idealized Lebanese mountain village, of olive trees and jasmine, of vineyards and streams. “Lyrically, they created the Lebanon we now love,” says Saleh of the brothers, who followed in the footsteps of writers such as Khalil Gibran and Mikhail Naimy, who helped to forge a romanticized image of Lebanon that many of its citizens still cling to today.
As the Palestinian poet and film director Hind Shoufani notes, Fayrouz represents “the village girl, the stories of love, the fetching of fresh water, the mountain, the resistance, the power of the people; that kind of simple, beautiful daily existence that is in harmony with nature.” As such, her songs have an additional, heartbreaking poignancy, because the Lebanon she sings of bears no resemblance to the Lebanon of today. She sings of a fading dream — one that is shared by much of the Arab world.
That vision was rooted in Lebanon’s golden age, with Fayrouz intimately linked to the formation of a national cultural identity in the years following independence from France. As the acclaimed indie-music producer Zeid Hamdan says, Fayrouz would carry that identity “with elegance and depth like no other singer.”
Fayrouz and the Rahbani Brothers changed popular Arabic music forever. Umm Kulthoum, another icon of the Arab world, sang songs of love that could last for up to an hour and were deeply embedded in the tarab tradition. The songs of Fayrouz and the Rahbani Brothers, however, were far shorter, utilized the Lebanese dialect, and embraced new melodic forms.
“As a musician, I am very inspired by the dialect that Fayrouz sings,” says Hamdan, “arguably best known as one half of the trip-hop duo Soapkills. “It’s not only classical Arabic, it’s often modern Lebanese, and the Rahbanis — from Assi to Ziad — used the Lebanese dialect in a very clever way throughout their repertoire.”
Hamdan was introduced to Fayrouz in the late 1990s by Yasmine Hamdan (no relation), his Soapkills partner. Encouraged by her, he bought a double K7 cassette of Fayrouz’s “Andaloussiyat” and immediately fell in love with three tracks, one of which was “Ya Man Hawa.”
“The lyrics are simply incredible,” he says. “It’s a form of poetry that is several hundred years old called muwashshah and I wish I could do justice to the beauty of the words.” Another was “Yara El Jadayel,” on which, at a certain point, Fayrouz “sings at a very high pitch and very softly, the melody almost whispered on a piano arpeggio”.
It is the wonder and versatility of Fayrouz’s voice that continues to entrance audiences across the world. El-Roumi thought her voice so beautiful that he gave her the nickname Fayrouz (Arabic for turquoise) and went on to become the first person to compose for her.
“Fayrouz has one of the most distinctive voices in the Arab world,” says Egyptian-Belgian singer Natacha Atlas, who has worked with the likes of Peter Gabriel and Nitin Sawhney. “One can always tell that it’s (her) voice. It is as delicate as it is beautiful and strong, and her voice’s ability to (carry) such strong emotions is always extraordinary. She is one of my greatest influences. When I hear her, I often melt in tears at the sheer beauty of her voice and how it also evokes a deep nostalgia in me for the Middle East as it once was, and how everything has changed almost beyond recognition.”
Fayrouz’s fame outside of the Levant can also be traced back to her support of the Palestinian cause. As early as 1957, Fayrouz and the Rahbani Brothers released “Rajioun” (We Will Return), a collection of pro-Palestinian anthems. This was followed in 1967 by the release of “Al-Quds Fil Bal” (Jerusalem In My Heart), and as recently as 2018 she was still dedicating songs to Palestinians killed on Gaza’s border with Israel.
When her husband’s health began to fail in the 1970s, Fayrouz began to collaborate more closely with her son Ziad — the eldest of her four children. One of the albums composed and arranged by him was “Wahdon,” which was released on the Zida record label in 1979 and includes the song “Al Bosta.”
“I cherish and love her experience with Ziad,” says Saleh. “The albums that she did with him took her to jazz and bossa nova and sometimes to funk. This gave Fayrouz another dimension — that of the risk taker. She went out of her comfort zone, and that is very rare.”
This helped to cement her reputation with a younger generation and she continues to evoke a deep sense of nostalgia, not only among the Lebanese, but across the Levant and North Africa. Many Lebanese still start their day listening to Fayrouz’s songs and, despite family disputes over royalties, her controversial performance in Damascus in 2008, and accusations of plagiarism directed at the Rahbani family, her status as a cultural icon endures. When the French President Emmanuel Macron visited Lebanon in 2020, he chose the home of Fayrouz as one of his first ports of call, not those of the country’s political leaders.
“They described this beautiful Lebanon and they made us dream that this is our country, which was actually just a picture they had created,” says Saleh of Fayrouz and the Rahbani Brothers. “We were looking for it: ‘Where is this Lebanon you are talking about guys?’ We were always trying to find it but we never did. But thankfully they did create this image, because the bond that we have with our country is mainly because of them.”
