You know what you get when you fight fire with fire? An inexhaustible blaze.
But according to Nagla al-Imam, this isn’t true. She believes that fighting Israeli occupation with sexual harassment is actually the key to resisting it. She recently “invited Arab youth to sexually harass and rape Israeli women as a form of resistance”: Read More
Earlier this week, the Arab film industry lost one of its foremost figures, as the renowned Egyptian director, Youssef Chahine passed away in Cairo at the age of 82, following a brain haemorrhage.
Born on 25 January, 1926 to a Christian family in Alexandria, his father was an attorney of Lebanese origin, while his mother was Greek.
Growing up, the pentalingual Chahine home was as cosmopolitan as the city in which it rested, although as Chahine later joked, as with other Alexandrines, he failed to master any of the languages completely.
After studying engineering at Alexandria University for one year, Chahine convinced his parents to allow him to pursue his interest in acting through studying in Hollywood, where he passed the years 1946 to 1948 at the Pasadena Playhouse on the outskirts of Los Angeles.
On his return to Egypt, he entered the film industry after embarking on apprentice work with the Italian documentary film-maker, Gianni Vernuccio, and cinematographer, Alvisi Orfanelli, the latter of whom introduced Chahine to the major production companies of the late 1940s.
Orfanelli subsequently assisted in Chahine’s early films, Ibn el-Nil (Son of the Nile) in 1951, Nisa Bila Rigal (Women Without Men) in 1953, and Bab El Haded (Cairo Station) in 1958.
Already a resident of the movie hub of the Middle East – Egypt has been a steady source of movies since the 1930s – Chahine commenced his first film, Baba Amine (Father Amine) in 1950.
Nevertheless, it was his second film, Ibn el-Nil that catapulted him to success as the movie’s début at the 1951 Venice Film Festival drew more crowds than anticipated due to a sudden turn of meteorological fortune.
Caught in a flash rainstorm, festival goers thronged into his showing in gowns and bikinis alike, and discovered a cinematic revelation that would seal the fate of Chahine’s reputation in the movie industry.
With a directing career spanning 58 years, Chahine’s work inevitably has challenged as many boundaries as it has garnered awards. Read More
The annual Egyptian National Theatre Festival has ended on the 16th of this month and out of the 45 plays on show during its 11 days one play in particular attracted the biggest number of critical reviews all of which have been very positive, this play is Qahwa Sada (i.e. black coffee).
In Egypt black coffee is strongly linked to mourning. After a funeral people who come to offer their condolences are given black coffee to drink, and it is to this tradition that the play refers. What the play mourns is everything that many Egyptians lament the disappearance of, from the lack of tightly knit families to the deterioration in the economy and the degeneration of pop culture.
So many positive reviews and so many friends of mine recommended Qahwa Sada that my expectations were very high and I became obsessed with the idea of attending the play. However, when I finally managed to see it (after an hour of standing in the ticket line and arguing with “organizers” who allowed late comers to enter at the front of the line) I was very disappointed by what I saw. Though the idea and execution of the play was, by Egyptian performed arts’ standards, above average, it was still mediocre by international standards. Read More
Today I received two emails from a friend. Together they make for an interesting commentary on the divided psyche of the American-Egyptian community.
The first is a flyer for an event sponsored by The Egyptian American Medical Society, Egyptian American Professional Society, Egyptian American Business Association, Egyptian American Group, and the American Muslim Union.
I laud the efforts made by the community to form organizations that seek to enrich our lives in the United States of America. It makes me proud to be an American-Egyptian. One of the greatest privileges we enjoy in this country is the freedom to participate in civic life without government interference. It is a privilege we should never take for granted and always jealously guard.
Yet my pleasure at seeing such civic engagement was tempered by a factual error in the email. You see the event is intended to honor the Ambassador Sherif el Kholy who happens to be a nice man. The only problem is that as far as I can tell he is not the Ambassador. Nabil Fahmy is the Egyptian Ambassador to the United States.
This minor detail matters immensely. As an American-Egyptian I fret that our propensity to use titles that glorify figures of authority has been carried to our adopted country. Has this mindset, I asked myself, already become entrenched in our civic organizations here in the United States? Didn’t many of us come to the United States and achieve our success as immigrants precisely because we believed in America as a meritocracy?
Why use a title that hasn’t been earned? Read More
Rasha Mahdi has been described as the first female Egyptian caricaturist.
In her bio, Ms. Mahdi lists her mother as her source of support in pursuing her goals. She also lists her background in graphic design and advertising. She has done freelance work for a variety of Egyptian publications, so, if you’re in Egypt, she might already be familiar.
Mahdi looks like she is no friend of the George W. Bush administration, though she takes on other subjects just as freely (Osama Bin Laden, Brad Pitt, and Tony Blair among them – personally, I’m a big fan of the Brad Pitt caricature; considering the fact that this man’s perfectly chiseled face has been staring at me from every newsstand). Read More
(This article was originally published in Jordan’s Living Well magazine)
Vroom… vroom, roared the Harley before its engine was turned off outside the pharmacy on duty in Geneva one quiet Sunday morning a few years ago in September. The six foot ‘quelque chose’ rider dismounted the daunting machine, took off his intimidating German helmet, neatly tucked it under his left arm, and walked slowly inside the drugstore.
Click…clack, he steadily thumped his way across the aisles in his huge boots and leathery attire. Elderly Sunday morning shoppers could not hide their disquiet at the site of this unusual visitor with his menacing looks, but pretended to mind their business. With the dark sunglasses carefully hiding hung-over eyes, but betraying weekend stubble, disheveled hair and an overgrown goatee, he placed his helmet on the counter. Read More
