Among the 30 African films screened within the 43rd edition of International Film Festival Rotterdam are Ahmad Abdalla's Rags and Tatters and Hind Meddeb's Electro Chaabi A handful of Egyptian films will be screened at the 43rd edition of International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR),which runs until 2 February in the Netherlands A highlight will be Ahmad Abdalla'sFarsh w Ghata (Rags and Tatters), a film that opened in Cairo cinemas at the end of last year. Farsh w Ghata follows a fugitive who escapes during the prison breaks that took place at the onset of the 2011 uprising. The film has been praised as capturing the sense of disillusionment that has gripped post-revolutionary Egypt. Another of the Egyptian films to be screened is Hind Meddeb's Electro Chaabi, which takes us into the electrifying world of mahraganat music, the genre of Arabic hip-hopthat first evolved in the margins of the post-January 2011 cultural revolution and has since exploded in popularity, just as ubiquitous in taxis as in Cairo nightclubs. In the Spectrum Shorts category is Ahmed Ghoneimy's short film The Cave, which tracks a bass player called Adham as he travels to Cairo to embark on a career in music. IFFR offers a richly diverse line-up of carefully selected films and documentaries, as well as short films and media art. This year's festival will see a spotlight on African films, with movies to be screened from Kenya, Morocco, Nigeria, South Africa, Tunisia, Algeria, Mozambique, and others. The festival is one of the largest audience and industry-driven film festivals in the world, with an official selection of some 220 features and 320 shorts out of 60 countries, according to the official IFFR website. http://english.ahram.org.eg/News/92732.aspx
