CAIRO - As the curtains went down on the Cairo International Film Festival on December 9, its Chairman, actor Ezzat Abu Ouf, took a deep breathe and told reporters and journalists that this year's event was "the best so far". Rejecting harsh criticism from critics and journalists, Abou Ouf said: "The budget for the Dubai Film Festival was LE100 million, while Cairo's was little more than LE8 million. But this year, we've been more successful than ever before under my chairmanship." According to Abou Ouf, nine Egyptian and foreign films were screened during the outgoing Cairo International Film Festival. "Also for the first time, the event launched a website in six languages, in collaboration with the Ministry of Communication," he explained. But Abou Ouf has had to accept criticism about the technical problems suffered during the screening of some films. "Such problems can happen at any major international film festival in any country," he declared, apologising to Egyptian audiences, who were taken off their guard by sex scenes that suddenly opened up on screen. Abou Ouf blames the censors for not marking these films as ‘For Adults Only'. Egyptian filmmakers won five prizes including the Golden Pyramid, the festival's biggest prize, which went to director Khaled el-Hagar for his film Al-Shawk (Longing). He suggested that the timetable and the many films in the competition made the censors' task demanding and difficult. Abou Ouf indicated that his success this year has encouraged him to ask the Minister of Culture to set up a permanent facility with a number of cinemas for the Cairo International Film Festival, the oldest and the most influential in the Middle East. "The Minister has promised to help sort out the problems, which could hinder this project," added the festival Chairman, who, together with his staff, has been accused of not organising the event properly. "Although it has celebrated its 34th edition, there is still a yawing gap between the Cairo International Film Festival and younger film festivals in the region," said one critic during a seminar held to discuss the recent festival in Cairo. Many film critics were critical of the translators deployed in seminars, attended by foreign filmmakers, because they were apparently unqualified and had scant knowledge of technical terms and the jargon of filmmaking. Protesting that the translators had disappointed the foreign guests and the Egyptian audiences, a journalist confessed that he was lost when a poor translator failed to explain his question properly to a foreign film producer. "It's absurd that translators, who had no idea about the cinema industry and its technicalities should be invited to communicate our ideas and questions to the foreign guests and vice versa," said the critic. "We couldn't report these seminars to our newspapers because we were unable to figure out, who was saying what."
