Film festivals old and new THIS YEAR'S Alexandria International Film Festival (7-13 September 2005) will be honouring the name of Turkish director Omar Kafour, who passed away a few days ago. Kafour's contribution to cinema extended over 30 years, and the influence of Sufism was evident in his films. Last year, Kafour's film Confrontation participated in the official competition of the festival, while the present round will screen his films Broken Heart and Secret Face. The Turkish director Bikit Elhan is a member of the international jury committee, and her film The Dark Side of the Moon will be shown in the Turkish Panorama section. Turkey will also be participating in the official competition section of the festival with veteran director Atef Yilmaz's latest film Borrowed Bride. Eleven films are competing in the official competition, including the acclaimed Spainish director Alejandro Amenàbar's Mar Adentro (Sea Inside, 2004) and Abdel-Latif Kechich's French-Tunisian production L'esquive, besides the Moroccan Bab Al-Bahr (The Door to the Sea) directed by Dawoud Awlad Al-Sayed. The Egyptian entries in the festival's official competition include Malik wi Kitaba (Head and Tail), written by Ahmed El-Nasser and Sami Hossam, directed by Kamla Abu Zikri, and starring Mahmoud Hemeida, Hind Sabri, Khaled Abul-Naga and Lutfi Labib. Malik wi Kitaba depicts an acting professor who is so strict with his students he won't condone their performing professionally prior completing their degree. The festival will also honour Egyptian director Mohamed Khan, who will head the international jury board, as well as veteran actor Hussein Fahmi, actress Libliba, and staged combat specialist Mustafa El-Toukhi. The jury committee includes, besides Libliba, Moroccan director Mohamed El-Asli, Albanian director Miflan Mishnai, Spanish critic Antonio Viner Richard and French critic Patrice Carrée. Two round table discussions will be held, the first on the influence of the music video industry on cinema, headed by critic Khairiya El-Bishlawi, and the second on American movies dominating the international market, headed by veteran critic Ahmed El-Hadari. The festival will organise a ceremony to welcome its guests and participants on 10 September, four days after it opens, since the official opening coincides with the day of the presidential election. Fifty-three countries will participate in 9th Ismailia Film Festival for Documentary and Short Films (10-17 September) with a total of 184 films, 98 of which are competing in its five official sections. Arab official-competition participants include Egypt, Syria, Palestine, Emirates, Jordan, Lebanon and Qatar; the first five countries plus Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia and Libya are also showing films outside the competition. This round of the Ismailia Festival includes 29 short fiction films in the competition, and 39 outside; 28 short documentaries in the competition, and 24 outside; and 23 short animated films in competition, and 15 outside; 13 short experimental films in the competition, and four outside; five long documentaries in the competition, and four outside. Egypt contributes a total of 23 films, 13 of which are in the different competitions. Highlights include Hala Lutfi's documentary 'An Al-Shu'our bil-Bard (About Feeling Cold) as well as the short fiction films Innaharda Talatin November (Today is 30 November), directed by Mahmoud Soliman, and Beit Min Lahm (House of Flesh), directed by Rami Abdel-Gabbar. The international jury committee is composed of Chilean director Tomàs Welis Barkan, Turkish producer and director Zeynep �zbatur; Egyptian critic and director Sayed Said, Ukranian director and composer Vadim Khrapatchev and Lebanese director Jean Chamoun. The Mostra Internazionale d'Arte Cinematografica, better known internationally as the Venice Film Festival (31 August - 10 September), is by far the oldest film festival in existence today. Established in 1932, in the prevailing cinematic climate of fascist propaganda films and imitations of Hollywood comedies (dubbed "white telephone" comedies), the festival upheld the values of cinema d'auteur, transcending national boundaries. After the WWII, the event reflected the new climate of freedom of expression, incorporating such filmmakers of the Neo-realist school as Rossellini and De Sica, and paving the way for visionaries like Fellini. In 1952, the characteristic Golden Lion prize was introduced. Although the festival has traditionally sponsored non-Hollywood cinema, there has recently been a rapprochement, making this one of the most glamorous end-of-summer venues in the world. The President of the Venice Biennale, Davide Croff, and the Director of the 62nd Venice Film Festival, Marco Muller, announced that the 2005 round is set to feature four main sections: Venice 62 - In Competition, Out of Competition, Horizons, and Corto Cortissimo. Digital cinema features across the sections. The most spectacular night-time programming falls into the Out of Competition slot, in which works by directors already established in past rounds of the Festival will be screened at midnight, whilst Horizons, which aims to reflect new trends in cinema, will consist of six feature-length documentaries. An additional strand, the Secret History of Asian Cinema, is dedicated to the "invisible" cinema of the Far East (China, Hong Kong, Japan, India), presented alongside the official selection; it will feature a retrospective section on Japanese film (1926 to 1978), Chinese film (1934 to 1990) and Italian film (1946 to 1976).
