CAIRO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL -- 18-28 NOVEMBER The Cairo International Film Festival (CIFF), which opened on Tuesday 18 November with a star-studded gala show, has come a long way since it was established in the summer of 1976. In 1986 the late Saad El-Din Wahba, president of CIFF for 12 years until his death in 1997, succeeded in turning what was then a local and regional event into an internationally accredited festival, first on a non-competitive basis, and then, from 1991 onwards, as a festival having an official competition and enjoying a similar status to other leading international festivals, such as those in Venice, Cannes and Berlin. Under Ezzat Abu-Aouf, the current president of CIFF since 2006, the festival is regaining much of its faded past glamour, with this year's edition -- the 32nd -- hosting numerous international and Arab guests, and showcasing some hundred critically acclaimed films from all over the world, both inside CIFF's three competitions, as well as outside competitions. This year's guest of honour at CIFF is Spain, and the plethora of films screened during the festival is a testimony to the remarkable achievements and versatility of Spanish cinema. Al-Ahram Weekly welcomes CIFF guests and celebrates the joyous occasion for all cinema fans in Egypt who eagerly await the festival every year to follow major trends in world cinema and see films that commercial cinemas do not often screen. Opposite page, we are publishing the programme of all the films screened during the duration of the festival which closes on 28 November. The photos of the opening ceremony of CIFF on this page show: Egyptian Minister of Culture Farouk Hosny with Spanish Minister of Culture César Antonio Molina (top left); Egyptian actors Samira Ahmed and Omar Sharif with international guests Julia Ormond, Alicia Silverstone, Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell (top right); Susan Sarandon (right); and Nur and Mouhand (far right), the two Turkish stars of the hugely popular Turkish TV soap opera Nur.
