CAIRO: The Egypt automotive industry has staged a comeback in the first months of 2010, following disappointing sales figures in 2009. This strong performance appears to dispel the worry that Egypt s reduction of tariffs in line with free trade agreements could push out local manufacturers. In March, GB Auto, Egypt s largest automobile assembler …
An action thriller about a group of volunteers who protect modern China’s founding father from imperial assassins dominated the Hong Kong Film Awards, winning best film and seven other awards. “Bodyguards and Assassins also clinched best director for Hong Kong filmmaker Teddy Chen. “Echoes of the Rainbow, a nostalgic look back at 1960s Hong Kong, …
Women in the movies is not just about Marilyn Monroe, after Kathyrn Bigelow picked up the best-director Oscar, and with the likes of Jane Campion or Claire Denis enjoying a global following. At a women s film festival taking place outside Paris for the 32nd year running, the gender divide often took a back seat …
CAIRO: A law regulating public-private partnerships (PPPs) has received initial approval from the People’s Assembly (PA), ushering the legislation toward further consideration and bringing it one step closer to ratification. The legislation would permit the private sector to construct and operate infrastructure projects. While the government would provide periodic funding, private sector companies would bear …
Environmentalists aided by Avatar director James Cameron celebrated a big win Thursday after a judge suspended bidding on construction and operation of an Amazon dam that would be the planet s third-largest. The ruling also resulted in the suspension of the hydroelectric project s environmental license. It was reminiscent of 1989, when rock star Sting …
The guards at the Azhar Park advise you not to waste another LE 5 if you don’t already have a ticket to the Geneina Theater concert inside – it’s sold out, they tell you. Outside the open-air Geneina venue, people are scouting locations to catch a glimpse of the Dhafer Youssef performance. Inside, the theater …
CAIRO: The elaborate tomb of an ancient royal scribe has been unearthed in a discovery that Egypt s chief archaeologist said will help illuminate the relationship between Egypt and its eastern neighbors in antiquity. The intricately decorated tomb belonging to Ken-Amun, who was in charge of overseeing the royal records during the 19th Dynasty (1315-1201 …
New films by some of art cinema’s most feted filmmakers lead the 63rd Cannes Film Festival’s line-up, festival chief Thierry Fremaux revealed on Thursday. Sixty-four features will be screened in the various sections of the fest which runs from May 12-23. Leading this year’s competition is Mexican director Alejandro González Iñárritu’s “Biutiful starring Javier Bardem. …
Drawing is the basis of art creation, be it with pencil, charcoal, or any other mark-making edge. Yet despite that obvious fact, many aspiring artists overlook the medium as a preparation stage in the more serious and respected process of painting. One look at Rabab Nemr’s body of work proves otherwise. Nemr is a veteran …
International news agencies locked in a TV rights row with Cannes film festival organizers have boycotted one of the cinema world s key events – the list of movies selected to screen at the filmfest. Agence France-Presse, Reuters, AP and Getty TV have boycotted the festival s Paris press conference Thursday, held to announce the …
US-Canadian artist Rufus Wainwright returns to the solitude of the piano for his latest album, saying the instrument became a kind of cocoon as he worked on the music while his mother battled hopelessly against cancer. All Days Are Nights: Songs for Lulu, a stripped-down record haunted by his mother s death, releases ahead of …
Iran s culture minister said that the award-winning filmmaker Jafar Panahi was arrested because he was making an anti-regime film, the ISNA news agency reported. The culture and Islamic guidance ministry asked the judiciary and the security authorities about the arrest of Mr Panahi and they told us that it is a security case, Mohammad …
The one image that lingered in my mind long after finishing Ahmed Zaghlol Al-Sheti’s newest short story collection is that of three sad tigers sitting down for tea with a stranger in his home. Before leaving him, they approach slowly and shower him with feline affection. “Daw’ Shafaf Yantasher b Khefa (Transparent Light Spreading Softly) …
Studio executives don t care about your money. They just want you to laugh and love. But if you happen to turn your money over to them at the same time, all the better. Hollywood s summer is crammed with comedy and romance, old friends such as Shrek, the Toy Story gang and the Sex …
It s been 30 years, but Pink Floyd s The Wall still means a great deal in the rock world – and to its co-creator Roger Waters. So to commemorate the groundbreaking album s anniversary, Waters plans a tour this fall of the music from the concept album, with new staging that will bring the …
Werner Schroeter, one of the leading lights of 1970s-era New German Cinema and a pioneer of gay filmmaking, has died at age 65, a museum said Tuesday. Schroeter, who had suffered from cancer, succumbed late Monday after an operation in the central city of Kassel, Anne Jung, a spokeswoman at Berlin s Gay Museum which …
An older friend of mine once said that great Portuguese filmmaker Manoel de Oliveira is like a fine wine: He gets better with age. His films, the epitome of art-house cinema, are often long, slow-paced, contemplative, iconistic in composition and pedantic, and have equally captivated and frustrated critics and his small fan following alike. For …
CAIRO: A toe belonging to the father of famed boy pharaoh Tutankhamun has been returned to Egypt nearly a century after it was stolen, the Supreme Council of Antiquities said on Wednesday. The toe of King Akhenaton, which was stolen in 1907 during an examination of the pharaoh s bones, was returned during a signing …
The late-night guessing game is over, with a startling twist: Conan O Brien has chosen TBS as his future talk-show home. Expected to debut in November, the as-yet-untitled show will return O Brien to the air after an absence that began in January when he abruptly left NBC, his employer of 17 years. O Brien …
It s still a man s world. These words may appear incongruous in modern society, but there is truth in them. A report released by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development on International Women s Day reveals that men continue to earn more, and that women in dual-earning marriages are still expected to be …
A statement made by an Ahly fan about his dedication to his team sums up the sentiment of millions of Egyptians for whom football represents far more than a game, “Football is the only successful thing in my life. His declaration was preserved in acclaimed documentary, “A Place Called Home and has been ruefully echoed; …
CAIRO: Egyptian archaeologists unearthed a Roman mummy entombed in an elaborate sarcophagus at an ancient grave site alongside gypsum masks, the antiquities council said in a statement Monday. The one meter long gypsum sarcophagus portrays a woman dressed in Roman robes and contains a mummified woman or girl who died in the Greco-Roman period about …
Monet lived near it, Caillebotte sailed on it and any number of them likely spent time in the picturesque cafes along its banks. Now one museum in France has set out to show how France s iconic River Seine was one of the Impressionist painters greatest influences. As France gears up for its first major …
CAIRO: A new project by various United Nations organizations and their Egyptian counterparts aims to revitalize the Dahshour area of Saqqara, making it a tourist location, while protecting the delicate ecosystem and conducting community development. The project, which held its “inception workshop Saturday, is a cooperative effort of five UN agencies and their Egyptian counterparts. …
More than two decades since the last Barbie rolled off the assembly line in Taiwan, nostalgic former factory workers are preserving her memory by tailoring exquisite dresses for the iconic doll. For these women, making the outfits is a labor of love, recalling the days when the plant run by US toymaker Mattel was a …
It’s that fabled street on which stars have fallen, if only for a night. At Sawy Culture Wheel on Thursday, literary and musical notables – the Haddad and Jaheen families – are assembled together as the “Al Share’ (Street) group. The evening entitled “El Watan Wahed (The Nation is One) is dedicated to the work …
TAIPEI: As a younger man, Taiwan s Lin Yu-chun sang for hours on end, trying to get his mind off the sneers he endured because of his portly figure. The round-faced soprano with the bowl haircut never imagined his voice would one day transform him into an international sensation. But now, he is being compared …
Could you have predicted the record-shattering success of James Cameron s blockbuster film Avatar? Two US financial firms want to allow investors to bet on the commercial success of a film, but the notion of a futures market has drawn the ire of a broad coalition of Hollywood s entertainment industry. Arizona-based Media Derivatives is …
