Culture Minister Farouk Hosni and actor Ezzat Abu Ouf, the new president of the Cairo International Film Festival (CIFF), inaugurated the 30th round of the festival (28 Nov-8 Dec) at the Cairo Opera House Main Hall this week. This year's guests of honour -- Latin America, and Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, Peru, Chili, Colombia and Venezuela -- are together contributing 17 films. Homegrown honourees include Mahmoud Abdel-Aziz and Youssra, cinematographer Said Shimi and composer Omar Khayrat, while those from abroad are British actress Jacqueline Bisset, Argentinean actress Mia Maestro, French singer Charles Aznavour, American actor Danny Glover and Argentinean director Luis Puenzo. Which is not to mention the recently deceased Nobel laureate Naguib Mahfouz, to whom the whole round is dedicated, screening two Mexican films based on his novels, Arturo Ripstein 's Principio y Fin (The Beginning and the End, 1993) and Jorge Fons 's El Callejn de los milagros (Midaq Alley, 1994). The head of the international jury is Argentinean director Luis Puenzo, while members of the jury include Egyptian actor Khaled El-Nabawi, Egyptian director Kamla Abu Zekri, Hungarian film Professor Miklós Szinetàr, Lebanese director Assad Fouladkar, while Egyptian director Dawoud Abdel-Sayed and Syrian actor Doreid Laham head the digital film competition and the Arab film competition juries, respectively. A seminar with the Cairo Film Festival honouree Jacqueline Bisset was held at the Grand Hyatt Hotel, Ghada Abd El-Kader reports. Coordinated by film critic Youssef Sherif Rizkallah, the event featured festival president Ezzat Abu Ouf and actress Athar El-Hakim. Bisset talked about her experience with directors like François Truffault, John Huston, George Cukor and Roman Polañski and actors like Anthony Quinn, Linda Hamilton, Paul Newman, Leelee Sobieski, Armand Assante and Candice Bergen. Starring in, among many others, Under the Volcano (1984) and La Cérémonie (1995), Bisset was nominated repeatedly for the Golden Globe and the César Award and received prizes from the Avignon /New York Film Festival and the Munich Film Festival; in 2002 she won the first Cambridge Film Award and in 2003 the Lauderdale International Film Festival's Career Achievement Award. At the seminar she spoke with particular excitement of playing Jacqueline Kennedy in the 2003 release America's Prince: The John Kennedy Jacqueline Kennedy Story. Most actresses of her generation have had difficulty finding work after the age of 30, but not Bisset. "You have to adapt to reality. I go and find a small part in something I find interesting, or find an independent film." Secretary-General of the National Council for Childhood and Motherhood (NCCM) Moushira Khattab held a reception at the Diplomatic Club in honour of UNICEF Deputy Executive Director Rima Salah on the occasion of the latter's short visit to Egypt. Guests included Minister of Social Affairs Ali El-Moselhi, regional representative of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees in Cairo Saad El-Attar, UNICEF Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa Omar Abdi, UNICEF representative in Egypt Erma Manoncourt, regional representative of the United Nations Office on Drugs and resident coordinator deputy director of the United Nations Development Programme James Rawley as well as Al-Ahram journalist Mona Ragab. Farouk Shehata, batik artist and graphic professor at Alexandria University's Faculty of Fine Arts won this year's state incentive award. The Bibliotheca Alexandrina Arts Centre will hold a retrospective of his work to mark the occasion (7-27 Dec) -- an opportunity to see, in one man's work, the development of the contemporary art movement since the 1960s. At the Nile Hilton's Alf Leila Ballroom, the British Embassy celebrated St Andrews Day with the Scottish Country Dance Group, in the presence of, among others, British ambassador Sir Derek Plumbly and his wife, Nile Hilton General Manager Jean Pierre Mainardi and the man behind St Andrews Dinner Dance, Colin Chalmers. The UNICEF initiative Unite for Children Against AIDS and Hepatitis C was launched at the Cairo Opera House Open-air Theatre this week, where the testimonies of HIV- positive people were screened and, under the title of Soutna (Our Voice), samples of the peer education programmes were displayed and The Fairy, a play performed by street children and directed by Nada Thabet under the umbrella of Hope Village, was screened. Present were actors Mahmoud Qabil, Yehia El-Fakharani, Youssra, Khalid Abul- Naga, Laila Elwi, and Amr Waked alongside the young poet Ahmed Haddad. (see Features) In the course of a whole programme of activities at the British Council to mark World AIDS Day, a seminar entitled Ask the Expert gave the public a chance to speak with Ibrahim El-Kerdany from the WHO regional office, National Blood Transfusion Service Director Faten Moftah and Egyptian AIDS Society head Sawsan El-Sheikh. (see Features) Pharaonic Village Chairman Abdel-Salam Ragab held an exhibition on chocolate: its industry, origin and the process of its creation from the fermented, roasted and ground beans from cacao pods. For the third year running, the Asian Embassies held their annual charity bazaar at the Nile Hilton Hotel, showcasing toys, cosmetics, accessories as well as snacks and desserts. The event ended with a charity auction where people bid for flight tickets and five-star hotel stays.
