¨ The Children's Cancer Hospital Foundation 57357, in cooperation with the Italian Cultural Institute, held a charitable celebration marking UNESCO's World Poetry Day at the Cairo Opera House Open Air Theatre. The celebration, presented by radio anchor Osama Mounir, brought together an array of poets from Egypt and Italy, while actress Sawsan Badr read poetry. Present were actor and UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador Mahmoud Kabil and Director of the Catholic Centre for Egyptian Cinema Father Boutros Daniel. The evening featured the Zero50 band and singer Ayman Serdar. At the end, Italian Ambassador to Egypt Maurizio Massari handed certificates of recognition to Badr, Kabil and Serdar together with members of Zero50. ♣ Last Saturday, Indian Ambassador to Egypt Navdeep Suri and his wife Mani celebrated Holi at their residence in Zamalek, surrounded by friends and members of the Indian community in Egypt. Holi is one of India's most vibrant and popular festivals, marking the end of winter and the advent of spring. It is celebrated in different ways depending on local customs and traditions in the various regions of India. Suri and Mani welcomed spring with music, dance and a dash of organic coloured powders, for which guests were dressed in white. Among the attendees were the Chinese and Turkish ambassadors and their wives as well as the founder of El Sawy Culturewheel, Mohamed Al-Sawy, Al-Ahram writers Aisha Abdel-Ghaffar and Silvia Al-Naqadi, the head of Delegation of the European Union Ambassador James Moran, Mrs Randa Moran and Al-Ahram Weekly's very own Pack of Cards Editor Reham El-Adawi.
♥ The Sixth Egyptian National Theatre Festival opened with a prestigious ceremony at the Cairo Opera House Main Hall under the auspices of Minister of Culture Saber Arab and Director of the Cairo Opera House Ines Abdel-Dayem. The evening featured the play All the World's a Stage, directed by Islam Naguib and performed by a group of young talents. Guests included director Maher Selim, President of the Culture Production Sector Mohamed Abu Kheir, head of the Cultural Development Fund Mohamed Abu Seada, actors Salah Al-Saadani, Laila Taher, Tayseer Fahmi, Ahmed Maher, Khalil Morsi, Sherine, directors Galal Al-Sharkawi and Abdel-Rahman Al-Shafei and Director of the Catholic Centre for Egyptian Cinema Father Boutros Daniel.
♠ The American University in Cairo (AUC) has recently finished training 14-year-old Mahmoud Wael, one of the world's youngest certified programmers –– a tribute bestowed upon him by Microsoft. Wael has completed all levels of English and computer courses at the School of Continuing Education (SCE) through a three-month scholarship. With an intelligence quotient (IQ) level of 155, he is classified as a “genius” according to the Stanford-Binet Scale of Human Intelligence. At SCE, he earned several international programming certificates, the most recent of which were the CISCO Certified Network Associate and the CISCO Certified Network Professional programmes. These certificates qualify him to instruct university graduates. He has also completed numerous customised English courses, which he hopes will enable him to further develop his work. “I am intrigued and challenged by programming tasks,” said Wael. “Despite my young age, I feel excited whenever I work on a demanding computer-related task, some of which could consume up to eight hours of my time.” Wael's first encounter with AUC took place when, at the age of seven, he was offered a scholarship from the Greenland International School, an English-language educational institution. His astounding capabilities have also received acclaim from Noble laureate and AUC Trustee Ahmed Zewail. In a gathering at the US Embassy in Cairo, Zewail acknowledged Wael as a prodigy, encouraging him to seek higher grounds. “I hope that, one day, Mahmoud will grow up to take after Zewail and earn the Nobel Prize,” said his father. “It is my aspiration that he will grow up to become an esteemed scientist able to instigate positive change.”
¨ Kamal Abdel-Aziz, president of both the Ismailia International Film Festival for Documentary and Short Films and the Egyptian Film Centre, which organises the event, has announced the appointment of producer and screenwriter Mohamed Hefzi as director of the 16th round of the festival, which will be held in June 2013 (programme to published in the next few weeks). Hefzi, who is best known as the founder and owner of Film Clinic, a pioneering film production company in the Arab World, expressed his keenness on being the new director of such a major event. He stated that he is planning to expand the market for documentaries and shorts at the festival with new sections to help make the festival an attractive hub for major international and local filmmakers. To this end Hefzi will be collaborating with a newly selected team of cinema professionals. He commented, “I'll do my best to make use of my expertise and relations in cinema to launch a successful festival and establish an interactive film market there.” The Ismailia International Film Festival is one of the major cinematic events in the Arab world and the first to be dedicated exclusively to documentaries and shorts. It was first launched in 1991 and organised by the Egyptian Film Centre under the direction of Hashim Al-Nahhas. Four rounds were held successfully before a five-year pause, after which the festival came back to life as one of three events organised by Egypt's Ministry of Culture with the start of the millennium. Ismailia, located on the shore of the Suez Canal, is widely seen as among Egypt's most beautiful cities. Hefzi has announced the launch of the first round of the new Ismailia Documentary Platform, the first Arab co-production forum primarily dedicated to documentaries. The Ismailia Documentary Platform, on 6-8 June, will be an opportunity to have meetings with experts, sales agents and funders. Filmmakers from all over the world, who have a project with “an Arab connection” (director, producer, co-producer, main talent, location, subject matter, etc...) are encouraged to apply with feature-length creative documentary projects either at the development or post-production phase; all applications must be in English.
