By Madame Sosostris �ô� The Nubian Drums and Folk Instruments troupe founded and directed by Intesar Abdel-Fattah used pots and pans and an African marimba in its last concert at Al-Ghouri Dome in Al-Azhar Street, Al-Ghouriya: Sherif Sonbol was ready with his camera. �ôï The French Ambassador to Egypt Jean Félix Paganon gave a grand reception at his residence in Giza to celebrate French National Day. The guests included Minister of Culture Emad Abu Ghazi, Minister of Finance Samir Radwan, Minister of Tourism Mounir Fakhri Abdel-Nour, Director of Foreign Cultural Relations at the Culture Ministry Hossam Nassar, Editor-in-Chief of Al-Dimoqratiya (Democracy) magazine Hala Mustafa, AUC professor Mona Zaki, Lebanese Ambassador to Egypt Khaled Ziyada, Saudi Arabian Ambassador to Egypt Ahmed Al-Qattan, Italian Ambassador to Egypt Claudio Pacifico and his Turkish counterpart Héseyin Avni Botsali. �ô The Canadian Ambassador to Egypt Ferry de Kerckhove handed out graduation certificates at the Oasis School in Maadi in an evening featuring an operetta by the students. Graduates also conferred an honorary grant to Kerckhove. �ô� The crew of the film Eza'et Hob (Love Broadcast) celebrated the release of the new blockbuster at the headquarters of the production company. Written by Mohamed Nayer and directed by Ahmed Samir Farag, the film features actors Menna Shalabi, Youssra El-Louzi and Sherif Salama. �ô� Today the Indian Cinema Club of the Maulana Azad Centre for Indian Culture (MACIC) is screening the Hindi film Om Shanti Om at 3.30pm, followed by a discussion with Nadia Jereidini and Hassan El-Raddad, the emerging Egyptian actor who was featured in Youssri Nasrallah's award-winning Ehki Ya Scheherzade. Directed by Farah Khan in 2007, Om Shanti Om is a classic musical starring Shahrukh Khan (whose wife Gauri Khan is the producer), Deepika Padukone, Arjun Rampal, Shreyas Talpade and Kiron Kher. �ôï In its second year the El-Gouna Writers' Residency Programme recently concluded three sessions involving 12 writers from the USA, England, South Africa, the Philippines, Nigeria and Syria. "We are thrilled with the international interest and response rate we received from different writers around the world, despite the events of the Egyptian revolution," said Engineer Tarek Danish, assistant to the chairman of the programme's advisory board. "The Writers' Residency Programme was a key milestone in our strategy to position El-Gouna as a cultural hub since the opening of El-Gouna's branch of the Bibliotheca Alexandrina", Danish added. The writers worked on various projects in fiction and poetry during their stay in El-Gouna. "El-Gouna Writers' Residency provides aspiring writers with a peaceful environment to focus on their projects; and is also a great platform for cultural exchange with a diversity of reputable writers", said Clare Morgan, a British writer and Director of the Graduate Programme in Creative Writing at Oxford University. �ô The official Alma Mater song of Indiana University (IU), Hail to Old IU, was heard in Cairo at the 2011 Egypt programme graduation ceremony of Indiana University School of Law-Indianapolis, announcing the graduation of 78 Master of Laws graduates for 2011. According to Frank Emmert, the IU School of Law-Indianapolis has collaborated with the faculties of law at Cairo and Alexandria universities with the funding of USAID/Egypt to offer its Master of Laws degree, International and Comparative Law in Egypt. The ceremony took place at the Dusit Thani LakeView Hotel in Al-Tagammu Al-Khamis and started with the Egyptian and American national anthems. Dean Gary R Roberts and Gerald L Bepko, law professor, spoke of the importance of the programme in filling a gap in Western-Egyptian legal relations. Frank Emmert, the director of the programme in Egypt, stressed the mission of the programme: to produce excellent Egyptian lawyers and judges. Among the speakers at the ceremony were the dean of the Faculty of Law, Cairo University Mahmoud Kebeish, and Counsellor Mustafa El-Behbeiti, the deputy minister of justice and head of the International Cooperation Unit. Present were the assistant to the minister of international cooperation Noha Bakr, Cairo University Faculty of Law professor Mohamed Abdel-Wahab and Al-Ahram Weekly's very own Nesmahar Sayed who was exhilarated to see her brother Judge Mohamed Sayed Aly being hooded by Emmert while Dean Roberts handed him the certificate. �ô� The Venezuelan Ambassador to Egypt Victor Carazo, together with the Director of the Cairo Opera House Abdel-Moneim Kamel, inaugurated the oil paintings exhibition Spring in Egypt by Ecuadorian artist Ariyulis Carrillo at the Martyr Ziad Bakir Plastic Art Gallery at the Music Library of the Cairo Opera House. Present, among others, was the Chargé d'Affairs at the Embassy of Ecuador Fabian Palix, who happens to be Carrillo's husband.
