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Egyptian film director Yousry Nasrallah has been proposed as the jury chairman of the Short Films competition of the 75th Cannes Film Festival, which will take place between 17 and 28 May.
“The Jury will be tasked with selecting one of the nine films in Competition for the Short Film Palme d’or, to be awarded at the Festival’s closing ceremony on Saturday 28 May,” the organisers stated on Thursday.
Under the presidency of Nasrallah, the jury also comprises acclaimed Canadian actress and director Monia Chokri, Belgian director and screenwriter Laura Wandel, French actor and director Félix Moati, and French film critic Jean-Claude Raspiengeas.
“The Jury will also award three La Cinef prizes to the best of the 16 films from film schools presented this year. The prizes will be awarded at a ceremony prior to the screening of the award-winning films on Thursday, May 26, 2022.”
Arab filmmakers are well represented at Cannes this year, with the International Federation of Critics selecting veteran Egyptian director Ahmed Shawky to chair the critic’s jury.
Meanwhile, the International Critics Week (La Semaine de la Critique) announced Tunisian director Kaouther Ben Hania as the president of the 61st edition.
Veteran French actor Vincent Lindon will head the main jury which awards the coveted Palme d’Or top prize alongside British actress and director Rebecca Hall, Indian actress Deepika Padukone, Swedish actress Noomi Rapace, Italian actress and director Jasmine Trinca, Iranian director Asghar Farhadi, French director Ladj Ly, American director Jeff Nichols and Norwegian director Joachim Trier.
The renowned painter was recently awarded the Chevalier dans l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres
If there’s one thing artist AbdulRahim Sharif doesn’t like, it’s adopting a formula in his work.
And it seems that is, in fact, the winning formula, as the Bahraini painter, one of the island’s foremost talents, was recently awarded one of France’s most prestigious honours for people in the arts.
Sharif, 68, who was born in Manama in 1954, was recognised as a Chevalier dans l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. The accolade is awarded to a select number of people annually to recognise significant contributions made in the arts and literature, with the likes of Sheikh Dr Sultan bin Muhammad Al Qasimi, Ruler of Sharjah, and actors Mads Mikkelsen, Cate Blanchett and George Clooney having received it in the past.
Who is AbdulRahim Sharif?
Sharif studied at the famous Ecole nationale superieure des Beaux-Arts de Paris under the tutelage of sculptor Marcel Gili in the 1970s, where he won both the Pierre David-Weill and La Grande Masse des Beaux-Arts prizes for drawing.
After a period developing his craft in New York at theParsons School of Design (part of The New School), he returned to Bahrain in 1982, where a health crisis led Sharif to reopen his New York portfolio and re-evaluate his work.
“It took me back to something I’d been interested in from my youth,” he tells The National. “And that was the concept of immortality. This issue has stayed with me since I was painting instinctively as a younger man. It took time for me to realise that immortality was the beating heart of my work.”
He started to incorporate surprising elements into his art, pushing back against conventional practice and even playfully calling one of his exhibitions Who Says It Doesn’t Work?, featuring pieces such as his Bathtub series, toying with viewer expectations.
“I am moving more and more towards works with physical and mental energy,” says Sharif. “This gave me the freedom to paint anything. I am against formula.”
A reputation gone global
Sharif’s reputation has gone far beyond Bahrain and even New York City.
He used to teach students who’d moved to the kingdom from Europe and America. As his students left the Gulf and returned to their home countries, they took the art and name with them.
“The banks were booming at that time and I sold a lot of my work to expats in the industry,” he says. “Then locals started coming to the workshops and getting interesting in paintings. Suddenly, there was a local market that hadn’t been there before.”
As his reputation grew abroad, so it grew at home. Sharif won the Dilmun Award in the late 1970s, as well as the Dana Grand Award twice in the 1990s.
He was also a founder of the Bahrain Art Society, helping to bring a new generation of Bahraini artists into the wider art world.
A lifetime’s reward
Now, after nearly 50 years working in the arts, Sharif has collected perhaps his most prestigious award yet with the Chevalier dans l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.
“It means a lot,” says Sharif. “It’s one of the most important awards France can give. Even though I’ve had a lot of appreciation in my life, I’m very proud of this one”.
The award was presented in a small-scale ceremony at the French Embassy in Bahrain, attended by a few of Sharif’s family members and Shaikha Mai Bint Mohammed Al Khalifa, president of the Bahrain Authority for Culture and Antiquities.
It was a fitting tribute to Sharif’s lifetime of work and now his mind has turned to his legacy.
Sharif and his son Hisham, also a talented artist, have recently launched a joint exhibition titled Sharif & Sharif, which runs until Wednesday, February 23, at the Bahrain Art Centre. It shows their individual creative journeys and speaking to a “common understanding and concern for humanity, especially in the face of corruption, war and violence, and a common desire for society to start again”.
Sharif also aims to use the knowledge and skill he’s accumulated to help the next generation of artists in the region. “Teaching for me is an addiction. I want to ignite this again,” he explains.
“One of my plans, if God gives me health and long life, is to establish a school where we take care of talented artists from the region.”
Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities has started a project to restore Cairo’s Temple of Ben Ezra.
“It is of great importance as it is the oldest synagogue in Egypt and the Middle East,” said the council’s Secretary-General Mostafa Waziri.
Osama Talaat, head of the council’s Islamic, Coptic and Jewish Antiquities Sector, said: “The temple was named after Ezra, the religious scholar and Jewish philosopher.”
The restoration work will include cleaning walls, insulating the roof and treating cracks.
The last restoration work was done in 1991.
source/content: arabnews.com (edited)
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The restoration work will include cleaning walls, insulating the roof and treating cracks. (Supplied)
Gharbi is one of a number of Moroccans who have won similar prizes.
Youness Gharbi is the latest in a list of other Moroccans to have claimed a prize for his Quran recitation skills, this time in Saudi Arabia.
Visually impaired Gharbi won the “Otr Elkalam” competition on Wednesday, with a prize of SAR 5 million ($1.3 million).
He received his prize during a ceremony celebrating the completion of the international Quran reciting competition whose name is Arabic for the fragrance of speech.
The Chairman of the board of directors of Saudi’s general entertainment authority , Turki Al-Seikh, delivered the prize to Youness Gharbi and another British contestant Mohamed Ayoub who came in second place.
Mohamed Ayoub received an award of a little over half a million dollars.
In the call to prayer category, a Turkish contestant came in first place, Muhsin Kara, receiving SAR 2 million ($533,200), while another Turkish contestant Albijan Celik came in second place, winning a prize of SAR1 million ($266,600).
Saudi contestant Anas Al-Rahili came in fourth place with a SAR250,000 ($66,650) award.
During the ceremony, the event organizers announced that the “Otr Elkalam” competition will open its doors for international Quran reciters during Ramadan next year.
The “Otr Elkalam” competition was organized by the Saudi government’s General Entertainment Authority this month, to coincide with Ramadan.
Moroccans are no strangers to winning Quran reciting awards. In 2020, Five Moroccans won a Quran reciting competition award in Abu Dhabi during a virtual ceremony.
Nearly all prizewinners of the Abu Dhabi competition were Moroccans.
Moroccan Fatima-Zahrae Mrabet claimed the first place in the women’s “All Nationalities” category, and Moroccan Kaoutar Zribi and Chaimae Lchab trailed behind respectively in second and third place.
Moroccan men equally distinguished themselves at the ceremony, with Anas Mhamdi ranking first in the men’s “All Nationalities” category and Abdellah Bela ranking third within a different category.
Fatima Albanawi is an actress, producer, and filmmaker, who has performed in several drama, horror, romance and comedy productions.
Albanawi completed her undergraduate degree at Effat University in psychology in 2011, and received her master’s degree from Harvard University in theological studies in 2015.
In 2016, Albanawi was recognized for her role in the award-winning feature film “Barakah Meets Barakah.” The film won the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury at the Berlin International Film Festival, and was also the Saudi Arabian entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 89th Academy Awards.
She has also played a Parisian actress from the seventies in the feature film “Roll’em,” a selfish theater superstar in the “Bashar” series, and appeared in the Netflix series “Paranormal.”
Albanawi has traveled to multiple countries and performed around the world including in Buenos Aires and at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris.
Early on in her career, Albanawi founded “The Other Story” project. This is a book with the raw and unedited stories of Jeddah’s residents and visitors.
The actress had earlier served as a consultant at the Islamic Development Bank for six months, where she worked on developing a policy for the empowerment of women at the bank and its member countries. In 2018, Albanawi was selected as one of Time Magazine’s Young Generation Leaders, a series about the young people impacting the world. She was selected for her work in sharing the stories of people in Saudi society.
In the same year, she narrated and performed in a short film titled “A Blink of an Eye,” which shared the stories of “five normal lives that have changed or would change in a blink of an eye.”
In 2020, she wrote and directed her first short film “Until We See Light,” which became part of the feature “Becoming” in collaboration with the Red Sea International Film Festival.
Albanawi also co-wrote, co-directed, and starred in the “Al-Shak” serial drama, a Shahid.net original. The storyline was shot completely from home during the global pandemic.
In 2021, Albanawi starred in the Egyptian thriller series “60 Minutes,” which premiered on Shahid.net, recording the highest viewership in Egypt.
Suhayr al-Qalamawi is an icon of literature and politics in the Arab world in general and in Egypt in particular.
She greatly influenced cultural life in Egypt and the Arab world and it was her idea to establish the Cairo International Book Fair.
Qalamawi was born in Cairo, in a family that focused on educating their daughters. Her father was a surgeon and her mother spoke various languages. This upbringing helped her complete her education, and she graduated from the American College for Girls in 1928.
Her father also played a major role in developing her linguistic and cultural skills. She excelled reading the holy Qur’an with her father. Qalamawi’s father also owned a library where she was able to feed her infinite hunger for reading.
She was able to benefit from her father’s vast library of works at an early age, and it seems that writers such as Taha Hussein, Rifa’a al-Tahtawi and Ibn Iyas greatly contributed to her literary talent and shaped her voice as a writer.
Her father encouraged her to specialize in Arabic literature, and she became the first young girl to attend Cairo University and the first woman among 40 men to study Arabic literature. After obtaining a Master of Arts, she then received a scholarship to conduct research in Paris for her Ph.D. in 1941. After the completion of her doctoral thesis, she became the first woman to obtain a doctorate from Cairo University.
During her educational career, she was influenced by a number of personalities, most notably the dean of Arabic literature Taha Hussein, who was head of the Arabic language department and editor-in-chief of the Cairo University Magazine at the time. He made her assistant editor-in-chief of the magazine in 1932, and Qalamawi became the first woman to obtain a permit to practice journalism in Egypt.
Suhayr al-Qalamawi started her career after graduation as the first female lecturer at Cairo University in 1936. Soon she became a university professor and later the head of the Arabic language department between 1958-1967, in addition to becoming the president of the Egyptian Feminist Union.
She became the president of the Egyptian General Authority for Cinema, Theater and Music in 1967 and the head of the Child Culture Society in 1968. Qalamawi was also the head of the administration of the General Egyptian Book Organization, from 1967 to 1971, and the head of the censorship authority from 1982 to 1985.
In addition, Qalamawi was able to make outstanding contributions within the cultural field. During her tenure as head of the General Egyptian Book Organization, she worked to expand the range of readers, encourage young writers, and advance the book industry in 1967. From here, she established the first book fair in the Middle East, which is the Cairo International Book Fair in 1967.
Suhayr al-Qalamawi’s contributions were not limited to the cultural community, but she also contributed to the struggle of women, in order to preserve their rights through her literary works, in addition to her participation in many conferences on Arab women, and in 1960, she was the president of the International Conference on Women.
Furthermore, Qalamawi’s journey was also full of political work, and the beginning was when she entered politics as a member of Parliament in 1958 , and was nominated again in the period from 1979 to 1984.
Qalamawi’s career was crowned with a number of awards, as she was awarded the Arabic Language Academy Award in 1954 and the State Appreciation Award in Youth Literature. She also received the State Encouragement Award, the State Appreciation Award in Literature, The First Class Order of the Republic, the Medal of Achievement, and an Honorary Doctorate from the American University in Cairo.
After an enriching career, Suhayr al-Qalamawi passed away in 1997.
Representation matters. Not just representation of ethnic background, but of personal experience. As Egyptian director Mohamed Diab becomes the first Arab to direct a Marvel project with the eagerly awaited limited series “Moon Knight,” it’s a landmark moment not only because of his nationality, but also because he was born, raised, thrived and suffered in Egypt, living through his country’s revolution and painful rebuild, and ultimately becoming one of its most important chroniclers.
“I’m not someone who is obsessed with firsts, but I will say that what is unique about me getting the Marvel job is that I’m coming directly from the Arab world,” Diab — who previously helmed the award-winning films “Cairo 678” (2010), “Clash” (2016), and “Amira” (2021) — continues.
There was a major reason that Diab’s voice was so necessary to the project. While many of the Marvel comic books from the 60s and 70s drew from cultures and mythologies from across the world, they were written and drawn from a perspective foreign to the cultures they were influenced by, leading to limited — sometimes offensive — portrayals of those people, places, and histories.
Part of Diab’s mission was not just to apply his own voice to the show, but to include the creative voices of as many Egyptians and Arabs as he could. Each Egyptian character on the show is portrayed by an actual Egyptian — something rarely, if ever, done in Hollywood — including the ancient deity that plagues Moon Knight himself. Behind the scenes, Diab recruited the previous collaborator Ahmed Hafez as one of the series’ editors, and the great Egyptian composer Hesham Nazih to write the series’ score.
Diab — as the show’s key creative voice along with creator Jeremy Slater — was integral in far more than capturing the Egyptian aspects of the show; he helped shape its entire aesthetic, so the show embraces elements that no Marvel project has before in terms of tone, style, and themes. He also personally convinced two actors who had long resisted becoming part of a superhero project — Oscar Isaac and Ethan Hawke — to come aboard.
“The wonderful idea of hiring Mohamed to be our quarterback, to guide this ship, is that the movies he’s made in Egypt are incredible,” says Hawke. “He’s not looking at this with the eyes of an American, he’s looking at this — and these deities, and this world — from a vantage point of growing up in Egypt and having a lot to say about it. It’s exciting to be around him in that way.”
Diab also recruited the Egyptian-Palestinian actress May Calamawy, best known for her role in the Golden Globe-winning sitcom “Ramy,” as one of the show’s leads.
Ultimately, “Moon Knight” — which debuts internationally on Disney+ on March 30 and will premiere in the region this summer — is a show full of outsiders who, in partnership with Marvel Studios head Kevin Feige and many others, lent their creative voices to make this a Marvel project like no other.
source/content: arabnews.com (edited)
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Egyptian director Mohamed Diab is the first Arab to direct a Marvel project with the eagerly awaited limited series “Moon Knight.” (Supplied)
Elham Fateem’s collection of vignettes about successful Egyptian women in nontraditional careers makes an interesting and approachable read about gender for specialists and the public alike.
A book about gender is normally not an attractive read for the public, yet putting it in the form of stories rendered Hekayat Setat men Baladna (“Tales of Women from our Land”) an interesting read for the specialists in the field and regular readers alike.
The writer is Elham Fateem, a veteran in the human development field who has worked for decades on developing womens’ and childrens’ skills and capacities. She was able, in a smooth writing style, to present stories of regular women and show their strengths while explaining the paths they took and the obstacles they faced.
The subject is women who broke the society’s taboos in choosing nontraditional careers such as diver, butcher, mechanic, carpenter, marble worker and others. The tales came from her fieldwork and interviews across Egypt’s governorates. The writer states that writing about the women she worked with has been a dream of hers for a long time. Taking advantage of the COVID-19 pandemic, she finally wrote and published it.
The writer chose different examples of women that she considered heroines for taking the route they chose in their life. The subjects are diverse; they come from different backgrounds, whether educational, financial or social ones. The choice of jobs depends on each woman’s circumstances, choices and inclinations.
The writer chose seventeen women to profile, which is still just a drop in the ocean.
The subjects are more than we can imagine. Oppressed women and those who have lost their rights by the society are all over the media and can be seen in day to day life, but those who are successful in a non-traditional ways need some digging to show the difficulties they had to face in order to stay on the paths they chose.
The Emirates Red Crescent (ERC) entered the Guinness World Records for the largest single humanitarian donation in the world, paying over AED8 million in July to treat a Syrian child, Julie Ahmed Nasser, who is suffering from a rare disease.
Julie’s mother called for help in a video that was circulated on social media, explaining that her child suffers from spinal muscular atrophy, and the inability to breathe, walk, stand, eat or even sit without the help of others.
In response, H.H. Sheikha Fatima bint Mubarak, Chairwoman of the General Women’s Union (GWU), Chairwoman of the Supreme Council for Motherhood and Childhood, Supreme Chairwoman of the Family Development Foundation (FDF), and Honorary Chairperson of the ERC, instructed the ERC to cover Julie’s medical treatment and provide her with the highest standards of healthcare treatment in one of the country’s hospitals.
The ERC responded to the directives of Sheikha Fatima with a comprehensive treatment programme that helped Julie receive a necessary treatment at Al Jalila Specialty Hospital in Dubai, after which the girl was able to move parts of her body.
The ERC recently received a Guinness World Records certificate from the group’s representative in Dubai.
Dr. Mohammed Ateeq Al Falahi, ERC Secretary-General, said the directives of Sheikha Fatima is a beacon that has led the ERC to reach out to and help vulnerable people, especially children.
source/content: wam.ae (edited)
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الهلال الأحمر يدخل موسوعة “جينيس” عن أكبر تبرع مالي لحالة إنسانية تجاوز 8 ملايين درهم
The first world expo held in the Middle East ends in style.
After 182 days of diverse and rich activities and events, which enjoyed by millions of visitors from across the world, the curtain of Expo 2020 Dubai, the first world expo held in the Middle East, Africa and South Asia (MEASA) region and the first hosted by an Arab nation, came down on Thursday, March 31, 2022, at the iconic dome-structured Al Wasl Plaza.
The six-month-long exposition, staged under the central theme, “Connecting Minds, Creating the Future”, defied the tremendous challenge of the COVID-19 pandemic, delivering a resounding success.
By organising the world greatest show amidst such challenges, the UAE has removed the world ”impossible” from its lexicon to present a wonderful edition in the event’s long history as His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President, Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai, said in an audio message delivered at the closing ceremony of the mega global event.
We will not be exaggerating if we repeat what millions of visitors have said that Dubai’s remarkable success offered a great challenge for those to come.
Expo 2020 Dubai, which brought together 192 participating nations, is not a mere event that tells the culture and history of participating countries, rather than an invitation to engage and share visions to address challenges facing the humanity.
The UAE selection of the theme, ”Connecting Minds, Creating the Future” as a headline for its campaign to host the exhibition, did not come by chance. The UAE used to look to the future with proactive visions. Despite humanity’s passing through the most difficult and challenging time due to the COVID-19 pandemic and its negative effects on the economies of the world, there was no confusion in the UAE’s approach and calculations.
Projects did not stop or affected by slowness, delay or hesitation. Rather, they continued in an unprecedented harmony that encouraged the international community participate and engage with confidence enhanced by millions of visitors who and their families enjoyed events and activities that many of them may not be able to repeat again and they will proudly tell them to the future generations.
Since the International Exhibitions Bureau (BIE) announced on 27th November 2013 in Paris that Dubai had won the bid to host Expo 2020, no one doubted the UAE’s ability to present to the world the most beautiful and brightest image of an event that had been exclusively hosted by certain cities in regions far away from the Middle East and North Africa.
As usual, the UAE has a proven track-record in areas of communication and fresh innovative concepts and ideas which have been turned into reality over the past decades. An indicator of success of Expo is that the large number of visitors came from outside the country.
Over six months, Expo 2020 Dubai brought together over 190 participating nations, including multilateral organisations and academic institutions, in a defining moment to exchange new ideas and perspectives, inspire meaningful change and create a brighter future for all under the theme, ”Connecting Minds and Creating the Future” through sustainability, mobility and opportunity.
There is no better place and environment than Dubai and the UAE in general to discuss these issues that of major concern to the world. This was clearly reflected in the World Government Summit 2022, which was the best conclusion to an exceptional event.
It was an opportune coincidence that hosting this event preceded the UAE’s Golden Jubilee celebrations in 2021, as the UAE shared its visions, ideas and rich experience in development with the world in an event that chronicles the World Expo events a new.
The UAE deserves deepest congratulations for the remarkable success of Expo 2020 Dubai as the world welcomes Expo 2025 Osaka in Japan.
Opinion: by: Mohammed Jalal Al Rayssi is the Director-General of the Emirates News Agency (WAM)
source/content: gulfnews.com (edited)
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Sheikh Nahayan Mabarak Al Nahayan (L2), UAE Minister of Tolerance and Coexistence and Commissioner General of Expo 2020 Dubai, hands the BIE flag to His Excellency Jai-chul Choi (C), President of the Bureau International des Expositions (BIE) during the Expo 2020 Dubai Closing Ceremony at Al Wasl alongside Her Excellency Reem Al Hashimy (L), UAE Minister of State for International Cooperation and Director General, Expo 2020 Dubai, His Excellency, Dimitri Kerkentzes (R2), Secretary General of the Bureau International des Expositions (BIE), the governing body of World Expos and His Excellency Wakamiya Kenji (R), Minister for the 2025 World Expo in Osaka, Japan. Image Credit: Expo 2020 Dubai
