Children’s Festival Turns 20

The Cairo International Film Festival for Children turns 20 this year, celebrating with a special nod to the Egyptian stars who have brought smiles to both children’s and grownups’ faces over the years. During a special opening ceremony presentation, Minister of Culture Farouk Hosni and Dr. Fawzi Fahmi, the festival’s president, are presenting awards to stars Yehia El Fakharani, Ashraf Abdel-baki, Mohamed Heneidi, Mohsena Tawfik and Abdelrahman Abouzahra, as well as singers Mohamed Tharwat and Afaf Radi.

The 2010 festival features more than 300 short and feature-length films from around the world, focusing on young children and their related problems. In addition to film screenings, a number of seminars are addressing children’s issues such as “The Effect of Violence in Cinema on Children” and “Childhood in Cinema” with filmmaker Aly Badrakhan and writer Mahmoud Kassem as panelists.

T utankhamun, everyone’s favorite boy king, was back in the news again last month as Zahi Hawass, head of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, unveiled the latest findings about the famous pharaoh’s death. DNA tests indicate that King Tut died from severe malaria; he was not murdered as has been speculated in the past.

Just 19 when he died, Tut suffered a variety of ailments, including avascular bone necrosis, which weakens bone tissue. This may explain Tut’s damaged leg as well as the walking sticks found in his tomb. Complications from this condition, combined with bouts of malaria, were probably what finally did in the young royal.

This is the first time the DNA testing has been done on Egypt’s royal mummies, and the study seems to have cleared up questions about a number of previously unidentified bodies in the storerooms. Studying DNA taken from the bones of 10 mummies, researchers now believe they have identified the mummy known as KV55 as Tut’s father, Akhenaton, and the mummy KV35 as Amenhotep III, Tut’s grandfather. Hawass also touched on the identification of mummies believed to be Tut’s relatives, suggesting that Tut’s parents were actually brother and sister.

Scoot El-Khelafa readying for Ramadan.

The findings were the result of a joint Egyptian/German team that utilized DNA labs and analysis to discover the truth about King Tut’s death and the suspected identities of his relatives. The team’s findings were published in the February 17 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Malaria Murdered King Tut C omedian Hany Ramzy has recently signed with the new production company Ashkal to use his vocal talent in their first animated series, Ramadona. The children’s series, expected to air next Ramadan, is directed by Mohamed Nawar and reflects Egypt’s football obsession through the story of up-and-coming football player Ramadona, voiced by Ramzy.

Ramadona is discovered by a renowned sports instructor while playing in the streets of his small Cairo neighborhood. The episodes will follow Ramadona and his team’s challenges through several local tournaments. Among the comedians joining the cast are Said Tarabik, Tarek Abdelaziz and Nashwa Mostafa as Loza, Ramadona’s love interest.

Following their success in the 2008 serial Nasser, writer Youssry El-Gendy and Syrian director Bassel El-Khatib are reuniting for the new historical serial Scoot El-Khelafa (Fall of the Caliphate), portraying the last years of the Ottoman Empire from the reign of Sultan Abdulhamid until the fall of the empire at the turn of the twentieth century.

Mohamed Yassin

“We are showing colonial conspiracies that weakened the Islamic state, which eventually led to the downfall of the great Ottoman Empire,” El Gendy said during a press conference last month. His recent serials include 2007’s Man Allathi Atlaq Al Rasas Ala Hind Alam? (Who Shot Hind Alam?), starring Nadia El-Gendy, and 2006’s Hoda Shaarawi starring Fardous Abdel-Hamid. Scheduled to air this coming Ramadan, Scoot El-Khelafa will soon start shooting in several locations including Egypt, Turkey, Syria and Jordan and will feature a large cast of Arab and Turkish stars.

W ith Rotana Music cutting loose many of its artists in the aftermath of the global economic crisis, a new record company recently appeared to compete for leadership of the Arab world’s music industry. Founded by Lebanese producer Mohamed Yassin, Arabica Music recently signed with a number of singers in Egypt, including Hany Shaker, Medhat Saleh and Ali El Haggar as well as Tunisian singer Latifa and Lebanese singers Wael Gassar and Aziz Abdo, among others from the region. Nancy Agram, who had refused to join Rotana in the past, said that she is about to close an album deal with Arabica after releasing two singles with them: “Salemoly Aleih” (Say Hi to Him) and “Imta Ashofak” (When Will I See You).

No stranger to show business, Yassin has produced several Egyptian films over the past 30 years, including Mafeesh Gheir Keda (Nothing But That, 2006) through the ART network and its affiliate company Itihad Elfananin (Artists’ Union Co).

T he Great Pyramid is impressive in its own right, but Khufu’s house of eternity may be temporarily upstaged on March 26 as some 5,000 children attempt to set a Guinness world record. With Guinness officials watching, the kids, coming to the Giza Plateau from schools across the country, are to hold hands for five minutes around the Khufu pyramid. The event, organized by the non-governmental organization Dar El-Orman and supported by the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA), means to raise awareness of children’s and orphans’ issue at home and abroad. Dar El-Orman is responsible for finding surrogate families for orphans as well as providing an orphanage for children with regular and special needs. A February press conference at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo drew SCA chief Zahi Hawass, Moushira Khattab, minister of Family and Population, Hossam El-Kabbany, chairman of Dar El-Orman Association, actor and UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador Khaled Aboul Naga and football player Hazem Imam out in support of the cause. et