Celebrating the centenary of Egyptian cinema in Sicily, of all places, Samir Farid is impressed Wednesday 20 June: 100 years since the first Egyptian production, the work of Aziz and Doris Studio: Al-Khedewi Abbas Helmi Al-Thani Yazour Al-Ma'had Al-'Ilmi Al-Tabi' Li Masjid Al-Morsi Abul-Abbas bil Iskandariya (Khedive Abbas Helmi II Visits the Scientific Institute Annexed to Al-Morsi Abul-Abbas Mosque in Alexandria), completed on 20 June 1907, was the first film produced by an Egyptian company. Not far from the Abul-Abbas Mosque, this year, the Bibliotheca Alexandrina (BA) celebrated Egyptian Cinema Day, a newly instituted annual event, honouring Omar Sharif on his 75th birthday. At the same time, across from the seashore, near the opposite end of the Mediterranean, in an ancient Sicilian amphitheatre big enough for 5,000 people, the 53rd Taormina International Film Festival (16-22 June) celebrated the same anniversary with a guest-of-honour programme of seven representative films, the most recent in the BA's selection of the best 100 Egyptian films, which the festival president, Italy-based American film critic Deborah Young found in the 15 March 2007 issue of Al-Ahram Weekly -- starting with screenings of Sherif El-Bendari's short film Sabah Al-Fol (Rise and Shine, 2006) and Osama Fawzi's feature Bahib Al-Sima (I Love Cinema, 2004). Young's millennial programme featured Yousry Nasrallah's Al-Madina (The City, 1999), Mohamed Abu Seif's Oula Thanawi (First Year Secondary School, 1999), Atef Hatata's Al-Abwab Al-Mughlaqa (Closed Doors, 2000), Dawoud Abdel-Sayyed's Muwatin wa Mukhbir wa Harami (A Citizen, a Police Detective and a Thief, 2001), Hani Khalifa's Sahar Al-Layali (Nights Vigil, 2002), Hala Khalil's Ahla Al-Awqat (The Best of Times, 2003) and Marwan Hamid's Imarit Yacoubian (The Yacoubian Building, 2006). Presenting the Egyptian opening night was Italy-based Iraqi critic Irfan Rashid; and Egyptian honourees included the actress Youssra (who received Taormina's lifetime's achievement award), artist- minister Farouk Hosni (who received an intercultural dialogue award) and businessman Naguib Sawiris (who received an honorary certificate for supporting Egyptian cinema). Of the honorees only Youssra was present in person, but Egypt was also represented by Soheir Abdel-Qader, deputy director of the Cairo International Film Festival, actors Khaled El-Nabawi and Hind Sabri, and directors Yousry Nasrallah and Marwan Hamid who, together with the Argentinean producer-director Luis Puenzo (head), the Sicilian composer Franco Battiato, the American critic Peter Scarlet and the Serbian director Gordan Paskaljevic, is a jury member. The Roma Film Festival, inaugurated last year, has generated changes in film festivals throughout Italy by presenting the Venice Film Festival -- the oldest in the world, and together with Cannes and Berlin, one of the three most important -- with serious competition. At the Turin Film Festival, for example, director Nanni Moretti introduced a competition for first and second features. As of this round at Taormina Young, who has written on Arab and Mediterranean cinema for 20 years, notably in Variety magazine, limited the competition to Mediterranean films, with a new Mediterranean guest of honour every year -- Egypt was chosen due to its cinematic importance in the Middle East and Africa and because of the centenary of Egyptian film -- adding a second competition for short films from Sicily. By focussing on Mediterranean cinema Taormina becomes, for Italy, what Montpelier is for France and Valencia is for Spain. The festival takes place at the city's Grand Palace, which has several screens and conference halls besides the Greek amphitheatre, which enables vastly popular outdoor screenings. The competition features seven films: Barthélémy Grossmann's 13m2 (13 Metres Square, France); the Catalan filmmaker Jaume Mateu Adrover's Fuerte Apache (about Moroccan street children in Barcelona); David Volach's Hofshat Kaits (My Father My Lord, Israel); Nouri Bouzeid's Akhir Film (Making Of, Tunisia); Farida Bourquia's Imraatan' Ala Al-Tariq (Two Women on the Road, Morocco); Baris Pirhasan's Adam and the Devil (Turkey); and Stefano Incerti's L'Uomo di vetro (Man of Glass, Italy). Worth noting is that the first three films are their directors' debuts. Akhir Film won Best Film and its lead actor Lotfi Al-Abdelli Best Actor; David Volach won Best Director; while Salvatore Parlagreco, Heidrun Schleef and Stefano Incerti won Best Screenplay for Man of Glass. Bouzeid's prowess was no surprise -- his critique of oppression has progressed unhampered since the impression made by his first film Rih Al-Sadd (Wind of the Dam, 1986) -- but My Father My Lord marked the birth of a new master in the tradition Ingmar Bergman, Andrei Tarkovski and Andrej Zvjagintsev: Volach can clearly exploit the philosophical potential of the language of film. That both are about religious fundamentalism and intolerance -- in the jury's words the first shows the "psychological and social circumstances that can drive one into becoming a terrorist" and the second shows "the tragedy that can take place when religious devotion contradicts human needs" -- is revealing of the jury's perspective (the Italian film, too, is about testifying against the mafia). In the Beyond the Mediterranean section the award went to the Bulgarian film Warden of the Dead directed by Ilian Simeono and the public named Red Line by Francesco Cannav Best Short Film. Out of competition the festival screened films from all over the world, including world premiers of Hollywood productions such as the Warner Brothers' production Lucky You directed by Curtis Hanson -- in the presence of its star Robert Duval -- as well as Universal's Transformers directed by Michel Bay and produced by Steven Spielberg, and MGM's Fly Boys directed by Tony Bill. Also screened were the Puerto Rican Maldeamores (Lovesickness) directed by Carlos Ru�z Ru�z and Mariem Pérez Riera, and the French Les Témoins (Witnesses) directed by André Téchiné as well as films from Japan, Ireland, Russia and Argentina. On four occasions a "Master Class" was held by screening films followed by interviews with the directors in presence of film students: the Italian Giuseppe Tornatore on Il nuovo Cinema Paradiso (1989), Serbian Gordan Paskaljevic on Midwinter's Night's Dream (2004), the British Terence Davies on House of Mirth (2000) and the American Matt Dillon on City of Ghosts (2002). All four -- together with the French André Téchiné, the German Hanna Schygulla and Youssra -- received lifetime's achievement awards. The Sicilian-born Tornatore -- this round's principal honouree -- was the centre of much activity, with his entire corpus screened in newly printed film with English subtitles, a photography exhibit and the launch of two books: Uno Sguardo dal set (A Look from the Set, edited by Ninni Panzera) and Intervista a Riccardo Freda (Interview by Riccardo Freda, based on a 1996 interview). The first part of the closing ceremony consisted of an orchestral performance on the themes of Tornatore films composed and conducted by Ennio Morricone -- one of the greatest composers alive. Watching Morricone conduct the orchestra with no baton, using only his hands, was one of the most beautiful moments in the present writer's life. The second part featured a performance of the play Coraggio senza confini -- Voci oltre il buio directed by Mimmo Calopresti with music by the Orchestra Piazza Vittorio. The play is the Italian version of Speak Truth to Power written by Ariel Dorfmann and based on a book with the same title by Kerry Kennedy, head of the Robert Kennedy Foundation for Human Rights; it was performed for the first time in the US in 2003 and has now been translated into different languages in preparation for performances throughout the world. In her introduction to the catalogue of the festival Young says that, the Western markets having opened their doors to Indian cinema (Bollywood), it is now Egyptian cinema's turn.
