Caravan of the Euro-Arab cinema is back with a selection of recent European hits as well as Moroccan films premiering in Egypt. The festival opens tonight with Julian Schnabel s award winner "The Diving Bell & the Butterfly. The film won several awards, including the Best Director award at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival, the French César awards for Best Actor and Best Editing and the Gloden Globe prize for Best Foreign Language film and Best Direction among several other awards. The festival ends on Monday, Aug. 25, with the German-Turkish co-production "The Edge of Heaven, Fatih Akin's follow-up for the massive hit "Head-On. This well cast drama, in which the lives and emotional arcs of six people - four Turks and two Germans - crisscross through love and tragedy humanizes the German-born Turkish writer/director s interest in two seemingly divergent cultures. The film was awarded with the best Screenplay Prize at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival as well as best screenplay at the 2007 European Film Awards. The caravan is organizing a special Tribute to Youssef Chahine. A panel discussion with renowned filmmakers and critics who worked with Chahine will be held on Aug. 22 at the French Center for Culture & Cooperation, moderated by critic Essam Zakaria. Caravan is a series of Euro-Arab film festivals held in a number of Arab and European cities, moving from city to city throughout the year, promoting cultural exchange and creating an opportunity for dialogue. The project is funded by the European Union within the Euromed Audiovisual Program II Throughout the past two years the Caravan screened more than 200 European and Arab productions between features, long and short documentaries and short narratives, touring more than 10 European and Arab cities. As 2008 is the year for intercultural dialogue, this latest edition is dedicated to the theme of dialogue between the South and the North, screening features which contributed to this mutual exchange and introduction of different cultures through camera lenses and the views of amazing talents of filmmakers from different cultures.
