Saturday, November 22, 2008

Human Rights Film Festival in Um ad Dunya

As you all know , the 32nd Cairo International Film Festival is taking place in Cairo , this week, but a much more interesting development is The first Cairo Human Rights Film Festival, that begins today, as part of the 60th anniversary celebrations of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights around the Globe, culminating on December 10th, the day of the original signing of the most important of all U.N documents.

This is the first such festival in Egypt, if i´m not totally wrong , but Human Rights Film Festivals is not a new phenomena, the Human Rights Watch has held a festival on the same theme for years, and earlier this year the Arab Gulf had it´s first in the form of the first Bahrain Human Rights International Film Festival took place in Manama.

The Cairo Human Rights Film Festival is organized by the American Islamic Congress and it´s Middle East Director Dalia Ziada in partnership with the Hisham Mubarak Law Center, Ibn Khaldoun Center for Development and the New Woman Foundation and will feature seven films in an equal amount of days.

The opening film is Democracy in Dakar, on the impact of youth culture in the political context of Senegal´s Presidential election in 2007, Tomorrow follows the Egyptian film Guáwa al Shabaka about the internet freedom, or lack there off and blogging for human rights in Egypt, feauturing Gamal Eid, Noha Atef, Abd al Moneim Mahmoud, Ahmed Maher, Muhammad Gamal and others, directed by Mahmoud Saber and created by Muhammed Gamal.

Among the other films is Stephen Johnson´s animated film from 1988, explaining the 30 articles of the UDHR(view it here, in 31 different languages, arabic being one of them here.

The final film is the Egyptian classic al bab al Maftouh, based on Latifa al Zayyat´s novel, portraying Laila, played on screen by the legendary actress Faten Hamama. Laila, of course, being as important today , as when it was first published, has been an inspiration for the Egyptian blogger project , Kolena Laila.

Three other films are also part of the festival, The Elders, A force more powerful and Confronting the truth.

All the films are followed by seminars, and all are free of charge. The schedule is available here.

For those who can´t join the festival, you can view the film Guawa al Shabaka below(via Sami Ben Gharbeia). Thanks to Dalia Ziada and the AIC for this very good iniative.I also agree with Dalia, that this is a splendid way of celebrating the mother of all declarations, here, were the cradle of civilization once had it´s humble beginning , at least with Egycentric eyes.

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Monday, November 17, 2008

al Ahly wins historic sixth African title

This is not news anymore, but Yesterday, al Ahly took a historic sixth African Club Championship title, as the first team on the continent, after winning against Cotton Sport, Cameroon(4-2 on aggregate).

1000 Mabrouk to coach Manuel Jose, and the team, and on to Tokyo for the FIFA World Club Championship!



Regular posting will resume shortly.

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