Every year, Ramadan sees a wealth of cultural celebrations, but this year holds even more new developments in store, particularly on television, writes Rania Khallaf Ramadan every year is marked by a host of cultural events, and this year is no exception. While the usual race is underway at terrestrial television studios to meet the competition set by the satellite channels, elsewhere in Cairo dramatic, literary and other cultural preparations are all feverishly underway. As far as television is concerned, the main event this Ramadan has to do with the popular drama series shown each year, with competition hotting up among film stars for the highest-profile roles. In addition to well-known actors whose names have long been associated with Ramadan, such as Yehia El-Fakharani, Yousra, Hussein Fahmy and Mamdouh Abdel-Alim, other actors have this year entered the fray, with Ahmed Rizq, star of the recent film Elly baly balak, the Syrian Solaf Fawakhergy, lead actress in a television drama about the singer Asmahan, and the talented Tunisian actress Hend Sabri, who stars with actor Khaled Saleh in the series After the Departure, all putting on strong performances. To add to the excitement, several new television channels will be inaugurated this Ramadan, giving more space for new drama series. According to minister of information Anas El-Fiqi, three new channels will be launched as part of a project to rejuvenate the existing specialist channels. These channels, Nile Drama, Nile Cinema and Nile Life, will be commercial stations designed to "increase the output of the Media Production City and to develop the Voice of Cairo station for audio- visual production," El-Fiqi said. While the satellite television channels naturally compete for audience share, this year the competition will if anything be even more heated than usual, with several channels pledging to offer immediate repeats of episodes of the more popular Ramadan dramas and giving viewers all the more reason to remain glued to their screens. Another feature of this year's Ramadan offerings is the increasing number of television sitcoms, which started to appear on Egyptian television screens only some two years ago. This Ramadan, the popular series Tamer wa Shawqiya starring Ahmed El-Fishawy and May Kassab will continue to get an airing, while Ragel wi sit sittat (One Man and Six Women) starring Ashraf Abdel-Baqi will continue for its third consecutive year. A brand-new sitcom, The Clinic, starring Basma and Khaled Sarhan and written by Amr Samir Atef, best known as the writer of the cartoon series Bakar, is also planned this year. According to industry sources, a further ten separate sitcoms are also in the pipeline awaiting broadcast licenses, among them Coiffeur Ashwaq, Abbas wa Inas and The Last Respectful Porters. This sudden surge of sitcom production is said to be a contemporary replacement for the Ramadan variety shows that have been popular standbys since the 1970s and typically star Nelly, Sherihan and Samir Ghanem, among others. Among the actors capturing viewers' imaginations this year is the veteran actor Yehia El-Fakharani, who is appearing in the series Sharaf Fath El-Bab this Ramadan in the role of a civil servant known for his integrity who is accused of accepting bribes. This accusation turns his life upside down, and it shares features with last year's hit Yetraba fi Ezzou (Raised in Luxury), in which a child-like sixty-year-old man has to rethink his life as a result of the arrival of a cousin, a scientist who emigrated to Germany. The idea these series share -- of the transformation of an older character who is seen as not being too old to change -- seems to be one that appeals to audiences, perhaps indicating wider hopes of social change. However, it is not only film stars who have made the journey onto television this Ramadan. Techniques from film have also found their way into small-screen offerings, notably in A Dead Heart, starring Sherif Mouneer, and El-Fanar with Sabreen and Ahmed Rateb and directed by Khaled Bahgat. Both these dramas use action techniques more usually found in film. According to the Cairo newspaper Al-Akhbar, Bahgat's refusal to shoot using stand-ins for the more dangerous episodes in El-Fanar, a drama set during the 1973 war with Israel, led to the injury of some of the show's stars, including Sabreen, during a reenactment of the storming of the Bar Lev Line. In another scene in the drama, Ahmed Rateb and Tarek Lotfy were apparently almost drowned when forced to swim across the Suez Canal. Other series that have been the object of discussion this year include an adaption of Wekalet Attiya from the novel by Egyptian author Khairy Shalaby. In an interview with the Weekly, Shalaby said that director Raffat el-Mehy had wanted to film the drama in cinematic style and had even gone so far as to film parts of the series twice at the Media Production City in Cairo in order to demonstrate the superiority of this way of working. Apart from staying in to watch television, those in search of cultural fare this Ramadan can also sample offerings proposed by the various cultural centres. Among these, Al-Mawred El-Thaqafy is holding its Hay Festival at the El-Genena Theatre in Al-Azhar Park from 11 to 25 September, the Al-Tanboura Troupe from Port Said, which first appeared in 1989, bringing the folk songs of the Suez Canal province to Cairo to kick off the festival. The programme also includes performances by the Friends Circus Group, the Cairo Dervishes, a group of Sufi dancers, Romeo and Leila, a show by Tunisian performer Ghalia Benali, and a concert by Lebanese musician Rony Barrak, which may be slightly at odds with Ramadan's oriental mood, since his music combines western styles, such as jazz, Latin and rock. Elsewhere, the El-Sawy Cultural Wheel is celebrating this year's Ramadan by organising a Khan El-Saqiya, an exhibition of handcrafts and paintings with live performances thrown in for free, a Ramadan Village, which will host performances of oriental, Sufi and Nubian music, and an Artists Gallery, which, in cooperation with Asala Society for Traditional Handicrafts, offers stained glass and khayamiya products for sale. The Egyptian Writers Union is also organising Ramadan events this year from its new premises in the Citadel area. Poetry reading nights are on the menu, featuring poets from across Egypt, including Ahmed Balboula, Hassan Khedr, Taher El-Brinbaly, Zainab Abulnaga and Soheer Metwalli from Mansoura, Ismail Eqab from Marsa Matrouh, Fouad Taman from Alexandria, and Ezzat El-Tery from Qena. Other gatherings include open meetings with minister of culture Farouk Hosny, novelists Alaa El-Aswany and Ibrahim Abdel-Meguid and poet Sayed Hegab. A special seminar is planned to celebrate the life and work of the late Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish. Still on a literary theme, Cairo's publishing houses have also shown a willingness to organise events for this year's Ramadan. The Sphinx Publishing Company is publishing a series of books on Sufism, for example, among them works by Ibn Arabi, while Al-Dar Publishers is republishing a collection of religious books by Ibrahim Eissa.
