Having spent the last two weeks working as part of its organisational team, Mohamed El-Assyouti previews the region's most talked about film event of the last few months
Announced at the 60th Cannes Film Festival and since then awaited with abated (...)
After his voyage to Marco Polo's hometown, Mohamed El-Assyouti takes stock of some of the highlights of the 64th Venice Film Festival
IMMY CARTER: MAN OF PLAINS, Jonathan Demme
Jonathan Demme, whose latest documentary Man of Plains deals with the (...)
The Iraq war, the Arab-Israeli conflict and other Third World woes: Mohamed El-Assyouti finds himself all too familiar with the 64th Venice International Film Festival fare
EXCEPT for a film by the Egyptian Youssef Chahine (with help from Khaled (...)
The death of within 24 hours of each other marks the end of modernism, argues Mohamed El-Assyouti
Since the Lumière brothers brought cinema into being in 1895 -- so is the accepted belief -- it has come to be seen as an all but dead art form: the (...)
Hala Khalil's Qas we Lazq (Cut and Paste) and Khaled Marie's Taymour we Shafiqa (Taymour and Shafiqa) may be this summer's most notable offerings, but Mohamed El-Assyouti and Hani Mustafa find them a little too TV for comfort
Gamila is almost 30, (...)
The environment, the digital alternative and Mohamed El-Assyouti
In a first-of-its-kind event, a digital film projection took place simultaneously in hundreds of movie theatres around the world on Wednesday 21 March 2006. At the Galaxy movie (...)
Mohamed El-Assyouti marvels at the subtleties of the search for love in Mohamed Khan's last film
Screenwriter Wissam Soleiman and director Mohamed Khan's second collaboration, Fi Shaqit Misr Al-Gadida (In the Heliopolis Flat) tells a love story. As (...)
As the country celebrates the centenary of the first film made in Egypt, Mohamed El-Assyouti reviews one hundred years of silver
I have watched Egyptian cinema since the 1970s. While some films stand the test of time -- if you happen to see them on (...)
Mohamed El-Assyouti joins in a celebration of womanhood
The Woman Film Festival (8-16 March, to coincide with both the International and Egyptian Women's Day) is the first event of its kind to be organised in Egypt. It is the work of volunteer (...)
Mohamed El-Assyouti offers an exciting foursome
Tonight the Film Unit of the Performance and Visual Arts Department at the American University in Cairo is screening four short Egyptian films by young filmmakers.
Ragilha (Her Man) is a 10-minute-long (...)
Mohamed El-Assyouti wraps up a year on the ever bigger screen
Egyptian cinema was very busy in 2006, with a major face-lift in terms of both content and style, sadly more apparent than real. The year opened with a return of independent-minded (...)
At the 30th Cairo International Film Festival, Mohamed El-Assyouti watches two films exploring the complexity of North Africa's relationship with Europe
Two European-North African co- productions at this year's Cairo International Film Festival (...)
Mohamed El-Assyouti previews the offerings of the Cairo International Film Festival, which opens on Tuesday
The Cairo International Film Festival (CIFF) marks its 30th anniversary this session (28 November-8 December 2006) and by way of celebration (...)
Marriage, virtue, honour: Mohamed El-Assyouti watches yet another romantic merry-go-rounds
What happens when two people who have never really liked each other accidentally meet at a train station and end up on the same train? Hardly relishing each (...)
What is the Ramadan TV serial based on the life of legendary actress Soad Hosni really about, asks Mohamed El-Assyouti
A child runs with her family seeking shelter during an air raid. She falls on her back and needs an operation that will cost LE15. (...)
EGYPTIAN filmmaker Khairi Bishara, head of the international jury committee of the 22nd round of the Alexandria International Film Festival (5-10 September), affirms that the jury was virtually unanimous in selecting the awards, as he tells Mohamed (...)
Despite reservations, Mohamed El-Assyouti gets a good laugh out of Zaza
The release of comedian Hani Ramzi's political satire Zaza comes as a welcome surprise from a censorship even more sensitive towards political criticism than taboos relating to (...)
Mohamed El-Assyouti finds Abla Kamel far from convincing in Awdat Al-Nadla
Summer saw the release of four films -- Good News Production's two star vehicles ' Imaret Yakoubian (The Yacoubian Building) and Halim, veteran producer Hussein El-Qala's (...)
As Israeli troops mass in southern Lebanon, Mohamed El-Assyouti revisits Arab Lutfi's documentary on Sidon, the filmmaker's elegy to the city of her youth, a place where the future and the past seem identical
Lebanese filmmaker Arab Lutfi believes (...)
A hard look at love: Mohamed El-Assyouti finds reasons to commend 'An Al-'Ishq wal Hawa
If Kamla Abu Zekri's 'An Al-'Ishq wal Hawa (Of Love and Infatuation) appears surprising it is because it dares to speak about matters of the heart in a (...)
In becoming a star vehicle The Yacoubian Building has lost much of its bite, writes Mohamed El-Assyouti
Alaa El-Aswani's novel 'Imaret Ya'koubian ( The Yacoubian Building ) became an instant bestseller. It has already gone through some seven (...)
Mohamed El-Assyouti finds veteran producer Hussein El-Qala's Awqat Faragh (Leisure) commendable, inasmuch as it addresses the bulk of its audience directly
At a 4pm show the audience, mostly 10 to 20 year-olds, alternated between moments of quiet, (...)
The 12th National Film Festival again raises the question of independent cinema, digital video and regulations. Mohamed El-Assyouti writes
The 12th National Film Festival (18-25 April), which is the Egyptian Ministry of Culture's answer to the Oscar (...)
In a new release, Mohamed El-Assyouti finds the same old caricature of Islamic fundamentalism -- with a generous twist of moralising
Damm Al-Ghazal (Gazelle Blood), written by Waheed Hamid and directed by Mohamed Yassin, is clearly a film with a (...)
Mohamed El-Assyouti finds a counterpoint to sloppiness in Kamla Abu Zekri's Malik wa Kitaba
In order to have something to teach one has to learn from lived experience. Oftentimes an academic career is an escape strategy, a barricading of oneself (...)