Skip to main content

Home/ Media in Middle East & North Africa/ Group items tagged theatre

Rss Feed Group items tagged

Ed Webb

Reviving the art of cinema in Gaza City - AJE News - 0 views

  • The sight of an active cinema hall is not common in Gaza, where all cinemas were either destroyed or permanently closed around the time of the first Intifada. Save for a couple of failed attempts to reopen them in the 1990s, the 10 cinemas that existed across the coastal territory before the Intifada have remained shut ever since.
  • Gaza Cinema, led by members of the production company Ain Media, launched about six weeks ago with a goal to revive cinema culture in the besieged enclave, where younger generations have grown up without ever setting foot inside a movie theatre. "I'm from the generation that never experienced cinema in Gaza," 27-year-old Hossam Salem, one of the organisers, told Al Jazeera. "People have a wider choice online, so one of the challenges is to get them to come and pay money to see a movie. I would like to see cinema culture one day become mainstream again."
  • "We are working with films that do not breach our tradition and that carry a good message, whether it is national or social," Salem said, noting blurbs about each film are submitted to the culture ministry for approval prior to screening. Most of the movies screened so far have been Palestinian feature films and children's cartoons.
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • The history of cinema in Gaza dates back to the 1940s, noted Khalil al-Mozayen, who directed a documentary called 36mm about the decline of cinema in Gaza.  "After 1948, war and refugees came to Gaza," Mozayen told Al Jazeera. "UNRWA [the UN's Palestinian refugee agency] began showing Arabic cinema in the refugee camps. Before the film, they'd broadcast messages telling people to drink milk and clean their teeth. The project enjoyed a lot of popularity." In the 1950s, Mozayen said, businessmen started to open cinemas. But after 1967, "religious groups started broadcasting messages against cinema", he said.
  • Al-Nasser Cinema was closed after the 1967 war, only to be reopened a year later upon the request of the new occupying authorities, the Israelis.
  • "At that time, we could no longer bring films from Egypt; we brought films from Israel. The cinema started showing Chinese, Indian, and European films," Khazendar said. "It was then that people began to stop going to the cinema. It became associated with the 'bad people'."
  • Gaza has produced notable film directors, such as Rashid Masharawi and the Nasser brothers, known as Arab and Tarzan, who have pursued their careers outside of Gaza
Ed Webb

Tahrir Monologues: Storytelling the highs and lows of revolution - Street Smart - Folk ... - 0 views

  • The performance displayed the fear, the doubt, and the waning of faith that materialised in the months that followed the stepping down of former president Hosni Mubarak. “Stories of unity and diversity seem like a ridiculous memory now,”
  • This performance at Left Bank featured memories from the battle in Mohamed Mahmoud Street last November, the December clashes at the cabinet sit in, and the February football match massacre in Port Said.
Ed Webb

Culture in Iran: Change the key, Rohani | The Economist - 0 views

  • In Iran it is rare to hear a woman sing in public. So rare, in fact, that when Shiva Soroush did so for all of three minutes last year the entire audience took to their feet. Grown men wept. With an aria in a performance of Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi, Ms Soroush, 27, became the first woman since the 1979 Islamic Revolution to sing opera for a public audience.
  • “At first I thought it would be dangerous and I wouldn’t be able to perform... [but] I can feel there is more freedom in the theatres now,” she says, adding that hopefully other women may now be blessed with similar opportunities. Her troupe, the Tehran Opera Ensemble, is the brainchild of Hadi Rosat, who returned to Iran in 2012 after more than a decade studying in Austria and Italy. But Tehran music lovers seem to place particular hope in Ms Souroush, as if she were single-handedly serenading Iran out of what many recall as the “eight dark years” under former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, which ended last August.
  • Some 600 student members of the Basij, a militia run by the powerful Revolutionary Guard, recently wrote a letter to the president. Warning Mr Rohani not to let his declared agenda of “moderation” be infiltrated by reformists, the students demanded strict supervision of the arts, cinema and press to avoid “any kind of secularist tolerance.”
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • Just as Mr Rohani faces opposition to his recent diplomatic overtures toward the West, his social agenda, led in part by the seemingly reform-friendly culture minister, Ali Jannati, is raising the ire of conservatives.
  • Farhad Fakhreddini (pictured), the founder of the national symphony orchestra, quit his job in 2009 to protest against growing interference by Mr Ahmadinejad’s government. On March 4th the 76-year-old conducted his first concert in five years, fronting the privately funded Mehrnavazan Orchestra. In the first of four sold-out concerts in Tehran, Mr Fakhreddini felt emboldened enough to perform a muscular rendition of the old national anthem from the time of the Shah. As he spun around to conduct his audience’s singing, he was met with standing ovation.
  • censorship is more often a matter of personal judgment than government decrees. Such was the case in January when Pallett, a fusion band that mixes folk music with jazz and Western pop influences, performed on national television. For 35 years the state broadcasting monopoly has forbidden musical instruments to be shown on TV. To circumvent the rule the band performed in pantomime, pretending to play their instruments in the air
  • The video quickly went viral. “We had not expected this reaction from so many people who found it controversial,” says Rouzbeh Esfandarmaz, the band’s clarinettist. “Our music is not political.”Viewers on both sides saw it differently. While some lauded what they saw as a brave political statement, the producer of the show got a rap over the knuckles for allowing such an open mockery of a state institution.
  • there are signs of tightened censorship in other areas
Ed Webb

Headrush - Ed Webb's Dickinson Blog: Waltz With Bashir - 0 views

  • I am very excited that the Middle East Studies program has been able to bring Waltz with Bashir to Carlisle.  It will play for four nights at the Carlisle Theatre, a cool art deco relic.  On the last evening, next Wednesday, I will moderate a panel discussion after the showing.  Among the panelists will be someone who was serving in the Israeli army at the time of the 1982 invasion of Lebanon - the events remembered in the film - as well as someone who was protesting the war as a member of Peace Now.  How cool is that?
Ed Webb

Twitter switch for Guardian, after 188 years of ink | Media | The Guardian - 0 views

  • A mammoth project is also underway to rewrite the whole of the newspaper's archive, stretching back to 1821, in the form of tweets. Major stories already completed include "1832 Reform Act gives voting rights to one in five adult males yay!!!"; "OMG Hitler invades Poland, allies declare war see tinyurl.com/b5x6e for more"; and "JFK assassin8d @ Dallas, def. heard second gunshot from grassy knoll WTF?"
  • Martin Luther King's legendary 1963 speech on the steps of the Lincoln memorial appears in the Guardian's Twitterised archive as "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the colour of their skin but by", eliminating the waffle and bluster of the original.
  • the Daily Mail recently pioneered an iPhone application providing users with a one-click facility for reporting suspicious behaviour by migrants or gays. "In the new media environment, readers want short and punchy coverage, while the interactive possibilities of Twitter promise to transform th," the online media guru Jeff Jarvis said in a tweet yesterday, before reaching his 140-character limit, which includes spaces. According to subsequent reports, he is thinking about going to the theatre tonight, but it is raining :(.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • Gutter, an experimental service designed to filter noteworthy liberal opinion from the cacophony of Twitter updates. Gutter members will be able to use the service to comment on liberal blogs around the web via a new tool, specially developed with the blogging platform WordPress, entitled GutterPress.
  • Currently, 17.8% of all Twitter traffic in the United Kingdom consists of status updates from Stephen Fry, whose reliably jolly tone, whether trapped in a lift or eating a scrumptious tart, has won him thousands of fans. A further 11% is made up of his 363,000 followers replying "@stephenfry LOL!", "@stephenfry EXACTLY the same thing happened to me", and "@stephenfry Meanwhile, I am making myself an omelette! Delicious!"
  •  
    It's April 1st already in the UK...
Ed Webb

'Diamond Dust,' a poisonous pleasure for Egyptian moviegoers - 0 views

  • Tearing down pillars of modern Egyptian history can be lethal, as author and screenwriter Ahmed Mourad and director Marwan Hamed recently discovered with “Diamond Dust,” a political thriller dealing with the Free Officers Movement and the coup that dethroned King Farouk on July 23, 1952
  • “Diamond Dust” the book, published six months before the 2011 revolution, became a best-seller that year, but was not a source of controversy. Its adaptation for the stage in 2016 premiered without event. This August, however, when the film adaptation by Hamed, known for the daring drama “The Yacoubian Building” (2006), arrived in Egyptian cinemas, it created a stir.
  • “Diamond Dust” is the first Egyptian movie to describe the 1952 change in government as a coup, rather than a revolution, as the state officially recognizes the event. In fact, the film is unapologetically critical of the whole movement. Egyptian cinematic works have criticized the politics of President Gamal Abdel Nasser, one of the leaders of the Free Officers, and of his successors' regimes, but the Free Officers Movement itself had apparently been off-limits.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • “Many viewers saw this vision as biased, as it addressed only Abdel Nasser’s flaws and neglected his virtues, while glorifying Mohammad Naguib with no reliable proof,” Shennawi told Al-Monitor. “Egyptian cinema suffered a lot in the era of Abdel Nasser, who exploited cinema to promote the ideas of the July 23 revolution and gradually root out any opposing ideas. Egyptian cinema started breaking free from those restrictions with the film ‘Al-Karnak’ [1975], which criticized Abdel Nasser’s era, and ‘Ahl al-Qima’ [People on the Top, 1981], against [President Anwar] Sadat’s Egypt.”
  • many Nasserists and supporters of the 1952 revolution have harshly criticized the film. Last month, Magdy Eltayeb, film critic for the newspaper Al-Qahira, posted on his personal Facebook page, “Diamond dust is poisonous. … [The film] adopted a stance against the 1952 revolution. … It showed excessive sympathy with the Jews to the extent that this has undermined this work’s aesthetic value as a film noir.”
  • A hit, “Diamond Dust” has so far earned 27.6 million Egyptian pounds ($1.5 million) at the box office.
Ed Webb

The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer: Turning Qatar into an Island: Saudi cuts off... - 0 views

  • There’s a cutting-off-the-nose-to-spite-the face aspect to a Saudi plan to turn Qatar into an island by digging a 60-kilometre ocean channel through the two countries’ land border that would accommodate a nuclear waste heap as well as a military base. If implemented, the channel would signal the kingdom’s belief that relations between the world’s only two Wahhabi states will not any time soon return to the projection of Gulf brotherhood that was the dominant theme prior to the United Arab Emirates-Saudi-led imposition in June of last year of a diplomatic and economic boycott of Qatar.
  • The message that notions of Gulf brotherhood are shallow at best is one that will be heard not only in Doha, but also in other capitals in the region
  • the nuclear waste dump and military base would be on the side of the channel that touches the Qatari border and would effectively constitute a Saudi outpost on the newly created island.
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • The plan, to be funded by private Saudi and Emirati investors and executed by Egyptian firms that helped broaden the Suez Canal, also envisions the construction of five hotels, two ports and a free trade zone.
  • The $750 million project would have the dump ready for when Saudi Arabia inaugurates the first two of its 16 planned nuclear reactors in 2027. Saudi Arabia is reviewing proposals to build the reactors from US, Chinese, French, South Korean contractors and expects to award the projects in December.
  • Qatar’s more liberal Wahhabism of the sea contrasts starkly with the Wahhabism of the land that Prince Mohammed is seeking to reform. The crown prince made waves last year by lifting a ban on women’s driving, granting women the right to attend male sporting events in stadiums, and introducing modern forms of entertainment like, music, cinema and theatre – all long-standing fixtures of Qatari social life and of the ability to reform while maintaining autocratic rule.
  • A traditional Gulf state and a Wahhabi state to boot, Qatari conservatism was everything but a mirror image of Saudi Arabia’s long-standing puritan way of life. Qatar did not have a powerful religious establishment like the one in Saudi Arabia that Prince Mohammed has recently whipped into subservience, nor did it implement absolute gender segregation. Non-Muslims can practice their faith in their own houses of worship and were exempted from bans on alcohol and pork. Qatar became a sponsor of the arts and hosted the controversial state-owned Al Jazeera television network that revolutionized the region’s controlled media landscape and became one of the world’s foremost global English-language broadcasters.
  • Qatari conservatism is likely what Prince Mohammed would like to achieve even if that is something he is unlikely to acknowledge
  • “I consider myself a good Wahhabi and can still be modern, understanding Islam in an open way. We take into account the changes in the world,” Abdelhameed Al Ansari, the then dean of Qatar University’s College of Sharia, a leader of the paradigm shift, told The Wall Street Journal in 2002.
  • if built, the channel would suggest that geopolitical supremacy has replaced ultra-conservative, supremacist religious doctrine as a driver of the king-in-waiting’s policy
Ed Webb

Why is the Egyptian state monopolizing the entertainment industry? | openDemocracy - 0 views

  • Egyptian television series that aired during the peak Ramadan season this year dramatically decreased by half from previous production volumes. Production restrictions and censorship in the most populous Arab country are on the rise, tough circumstances for the entertainment industry, exacerbated by a military-linked production company’s recent monopoly of soap operas. The move also raises concerns about whether a similar fate might be in the works for the film industry.
  • In late 2018, a memo circulated to industry professionals by state affiliate Egyptian Media Company (EMC) laid out a set of regulations making it virtually impossible for almost any production company asides from EMC sub arm Synergy Production to produce soap operas in the 2019 Ramadan season
  • “We have to understand why Synergy is gaining this much control…it’s also very clear that some series [this year] have an almost didactic direction, promoting particular ideas such as improving the image of police officers. Mandating which themes are to be discussed and which won’t be is not censorship, its indoctrination,” Aly Mourad, the CEO of Al Shorouk for Media Productions, tells Open Democracy. “I don’t think we’ve heard of this level of censorship since the time of [Former President] Nasser; it’s like we are going back 60 years in time.”
  • ...11 more annotations...
  • “What I fear is that this pool of currently unemployed talent will switch careers, which will come at the longtime expense of the industry since these are trained professionals. I do not believe that the military [Synergy] sees this; they simply have one clear goal: to control the industry. The government has effectively, through the institutions it runs, carried out the first monopolization process in the history of neoliberalism.”
  • In June 2018, the authorities banned a film examining a love affair between a Muslim man and a Christian woman before it hit the cinemas, although director Khaled Youssef said he obtained the necessary licenses. The decision was later revoked, but was alarming to many given rising censorship levels
  • While over fifty shows typically aired during the peak Ramadan season, even during economically turbulent years as in 2017 and 2018, only twenty-four shows aired last Ramadan, and over two-thirds of them are produced by Synergy. Production powerhouses like El Adl Group and Beelink Productions were notably absent this season from their regular Ramadan run, while regionally acclaimed megastars like Yossra, Adel Imam and Laila Elwy uncharacteristically did not star in any shows during the peak season either, likely due to the dramatic, forced budget cuts which make casting an A-lister virtually impossible. Compensation levels for many of these lead faces could often be as high as EGP 50 million (~USD 3 million), the currently imposed budget cap for aggregate production costs of a Ramadan soap opera’s full season
  • “For a producer, the direct client of drama series is television channels, and several factors have negatively impacted their purchasing power. The GCC-owned channels are struggling in light of the economic difficulties there, primarily due to the war in Yemen, so the main overseas market for selling television series is not that great. Add to this that privately owned channels in Egypt were never highly profitable, and media budgets generally were slashed with Egypt’s high inflation levels [during the past couple of years], and you have a situation where many production companies are struggling to stay afloat.”
  • Over the course of the past year, EMC CEO Tamer Morsy also gradually gained majority ownership of key television networks such as CBC, ONTV, DMC and Al-Hayat, a move facilitated through the recent launch of EMC affiliate United Group for Media Services. Moreover, state-owned entities effectively gained control of both the production and purchasing sides of the business as these unprecedented levels of regulation and government ownership were put in place.
  • in early May United Group for Media Services launched paid streaming app WatchiT and prohibited the longtime convention of shows airing online on YouTube for those who couldn’t catch them on satellite television channels. Widely accessed streaming app EgyBest, among other free online streaming services, were also blocked to allegedly mitigate “piracy”, granting government intelligence-affiliated WatchiT a monopoly over streaming services. Since digital finance and financial inclusion levels are low in the most populous Arab country, the decision came to the dismay of throes of viewers regardless of political affiliations or regulation concerns. For those following television series on satellite channels, short broadcast announcements interrupt episodes to denounce a May 28 Human Rights Watch report on enforced disappearances, killings and torture in North Sinai. Other broadcasts order audiences to pay heed to “threats to terrorism and national security.”
  • “Because these people [Synergy and EMC] are military men, their mentality is to cut off what doesn’t work, with little concern for the consequences. The military don’t understand or love the arts; they see it as just another industry they can profit off by minimizing losses.”
  • “It’s understandable that they [the military] would be more concerned with penetrating television production as opposed to the cinema industry, because viewership numbers are higher for television series in comparison to films. Not everyone can afford a cinema ticket, but most Egyptians, be they rich or poor, have access to a television set. There’s nothing to stop them from gaining as much control of the film industry as they have with television, but I believe they’re not investing in it [as much] because it isn’t as lucrative,”
  • Saudi Arabia is once again opening cinema theaters following a 35-year ban, creating a significant potential box office market for Egyptian films, particularly since plans for the inauguration of 2,000 theatres in the kingdom before 2020 are in the works
  • our country was once the Hollywood of the Middle East,”
  • There was a time when everyone in the Arab world recognized Umm Kalthoum and Ismail Yassin, even more so than [our own president] Nasser. We need to work towards reestablishing that, and understanding how entertainment can be used as a tool for soft power
Ed Webb

Tunisia's first LGBTQ play lifts curtain on hidden violence - 0 views

  • It's the first queer play to be staged in Tunisia -- director Essia Jaibi's latest work aims to challenge conservative attitudes in a country where same-sex acts are punishable by prison terms.
  • The work, co-produced by LGBTQ rights group Mawjoudin (translating to "we exist"), is played by six mostly amateur actors aged between 23 and 71, reflecting a decades-long struggle for gay rights in the North African country
  • other problems facing all Tunisians: police and judicial corruption, impunity and the brain drain as people leave to seek better economic prospects in Europe and elsewhere.
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • rights groups say the community is still vulnerable, with as little as a photo on a telephone potentially leading to arrest, physical violence and anal examinations.
  • The NGO also organised Tunisia's first queer cinema festival in 2018.
  • Tunisia is seen as relatively liberal on social issues compared with other Arab countries, but nevertheless imposes sentences of up to three years in prison for "sodomy" for both men and women
  • Rights groups are continuing to campaign for an end to Article 230, first introduced by French colonial administrators in 1913.
  • United Nations Committee Against Torture has condemned Tunisia's use of anal tests
  • The country in 2017 committed to ending the practice, but it has continued nonetheless.In December, two men were found guilty of same-sex acts after they refused to undergo such examinations -- seen by judges as proof of their guilt.
  • The Tunisian president, whose July power grab allowed him to issue laws and seize control of the judiciary, has said he is opposed to jail terms based on sexual orientation -- but also to the full decriminalisation of homosexuality.
1 - 16 of 16
Showing 20 items per page