MCE Participates in Alexandria International Book Fair
The Muslim Council of Elders is participating with a dedicated pavilion at the 20th edition of the Alexandria International Book Fair, which officially opened.
The event is jointly organized by the Bibliotheca Alexandrina, the Egyptian General Book Organization, the Egyptian Publishers Association, and the Arab Publishers Association, with wide participation from cultural institutions and publishing houses from across the Arab world and beyond.
The fair was inaugurated by Prof. Ahmed Zayed, Director of the Bibliotheca Alexandrina, in the presence of several prominent academic and diplomatic figures, including Dr. Mohamed Abdel Daim El-Gendy, Secretary-General of the Islamic Research Academy. Both visited the pavilion of the Muslim Council of Elders and reviewed the Council's latest publications in the fields of interfaith dialogue, Islamic thought renewal, promotion of societal peace, and awareness-raising around the values of Islamic moderation.
Prof. Ahmed Zayed praised the Council's publications, describing them as a valuable addition to contemporary cultural and religious discourse. Dr. El-Gendy likewise commended the important role the Council plays in countering extremism and protecting young people from insular ideologies, applauding its commitment to enlightened thinking and the reinforcement of human fraternity values.
The participation of the Muslim Council of Elders reflects its ongoing efforts to promote a culture of dialogue and tolerance, and to contribute intellectually and morally to major cultural forums. This presence aligns with the Council's mission to advance shared human values and to empower scholars and thinkers in building more informed and cohesive societies.
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Al-Ahram Weekly
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- Al-Ahram Weekly
The Arab Oscars - Culture - Al-Ahram Weekly
This year, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has invited 11 Arab filmmakers to join its ranks, as part of a new class of 395 members from around the world. It's a quiet but significant shift, one that reflects a growing recognition of Arab cinema's bold voices and diverse forms. From Morocco to Palestine, Lebanon to Tunisia, the list includes a wide range of talents: visionary directors, sharp editors, fearless producers, and pioneers who have shaped the region's cinematic landscape. Among them are Asmae El Moudir, whose debut shook Cannes; co-directors Hamdan Ballal and Basel Adra, whose documentary No Other Land just won the Oscar; and editor Rabab Haj Yahya, whose work has given shape to some of the most urgent stories of our times. Also on the list are Palestinian auteurs Elia Suleiman, who has spent decades turning silence into resistance; Michel Khleifi, whose films gave Palestinian cinema its poetic depth; Maha Haj, whose scripts are as subtle as they are political; and Lebanese filmmaker Danielle Arbid, always walking the line between memory and rebellion. Syria's Soudade Kaadan brings the tenderness of survival to the screen, while Tunisia's Habib Attia continues to back daring, socially charged films. And, finally, there is Myriam Sassine, who is not just a producer, but a builder of platforms and futures. Their inclusion speaks not just to personal achievements, but to a region that continues to create, persist, and reimagine itself—on and off screen. Among this year's invitees is Moroccan filmmaker Asmae El Moudir, whose debut feature The Mother of All Lies catapulted her to international recognition. A graduate of both the Moroccan Film Academy and La Fémis in Paris, El Moudir has worked across television and independent cinema, directing documentaries for platforms such as SNRT, Al Jazeera, BBC, and Al Araby TV. But it was this deeply personal and formally daring film that brought her to global attention. The Mother of All Lies explores the silences within El Moudir's own family and the suppressed history of the 1981 bread riots in Casablanca. In a striking visual language that blends miniature sets with real testimonies, the film premiered at Cannes in 2023, winning the Un Certain Regard Award for Best Director and the Golden Eye for Best Documentary. It went on to receive over 25 international awards, including the Étoile d'Or at the Marrakech International Film Festival, the first Moroccan film to win the prize. The film was Morocco's official Oscar submission for Best International Feature and was shortlisted among the final 15. El Moudir also earned nominations for the PGA Awards and the Film Independent Spirit Awards, and took home the IDA Award for Best Director. In 2024, she served as a jury member for Un Certain Regard, cementing her place as one of the most important new voices in Arab and global documentary filmmaking. Palestinian filmmakers Hamdan Ballal and Basel Adra join the Academy on the heels of their co-directed documentary No Other Land (2023). Shot over four years in collaboration with two other filmmakers, the film documents the Israeli occupation attempts to forcibly expel Palestinian residents from Masafer Yatta, a rural area in the occupied West Bank under constant threat of demolition. Premiering at the Berlinale in 2024, No Other Land won both the Panorama Audience Award and Best Documentary Award, and went on to win the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature in 2025. Hamdan Ballal, born in 1989 in Susiya, is a filmmaker, photographer and long-time human rights advocate. His work reflects the daily pressures of the occupation alongside the quiet resilience of Palestinian life. Just weeks after the film's Oscar win, Ballal was attacked by settlers near his home and later detained while injured by Israeli soldiers, a moment that drew international condemnation. Basel Adra, born in 1996 in At-Tuwani, began filming house demolitions as a teenager. His reporting for +972 Magazine, Local Call, and B'Tselem has made him a crucial witness to systemic violence in the area. Like Ballal, he has faced arrest and assault while documenting events on the ground. Among the newly invited members is Palestinian-American editor Rabab Haj Yahya, whose work over the past decade has shaped some of the most compelling documentaries in recent memory. Based in New York, Haj Yahya brings a rare blend of political insight, narrative sensitivity, and emotional clarity to the edit room. Her editing debut, Speed Sisters (2015), followed the first all-female Palestinian car racing team and stood out for its energy and refusal to lean on clichés. It premiered at Hot Docs, streamed on Netflix, and was nominated for a Critics' Choice Award. A few years later, her work on The Feeling of Being Watched (2018) – a personal investigation into FBI surveillance of Arab-American communities – earned her the Best Editing Award at the Woodstock Film Festival and helped cement her reputation as a bold storyteller unafraid to dig deep. Since then, Haj Yahya has edited a wide range of projects that push formal boundaries while tackling urgent social questions including Another Body (2023), which was nominated for an Emmy. She also edited The Legend of the Underground (2021) and Apart (2021), another Emmy nominee. In recognition of her impact, she received the Sulafa Jadallah Award, named after Palestine's pioneering woman photojournalist. Palestinian writer-director Maha Haj has also been invited to join the Academy, a recognition that feels long overdue for a filmmaker whose quiet, sharp storytelling has carved a distinct place in contemporary Arab cinema. Her debut feature, Personal Affairs (2016), premiered at Cannes in the Un Certain Regard section. In 2022, Haj returned to Cannes with Mediterranean Fever, which won Best Screenplay in Un Certain Regard. More recently, her short Upshot (2024) won Best Short Film at El Gouna and screened at Locarno. Like Haj Yahya, whose craft lies in weaving fragments into a meanful whole, Elia Suleiman has spent decades refining a cinematic language where silence speaks louder than words. The Palestinian director and screenwriter is among the most distinctive voices in global cinema, and his invitation to the Academy feels less like a new chapter, more like a quiet acknowledgment of a legacy already written. Born in 1960 in Nazareth, Suleiman built an internationally acclaimed body of work grounded in deadpan humour, poetic stillness, and the absurdity of everyday life under occupation. He made his feature debut with Chronicle of a Disappearance (1996), which won Best First Film at Venice. His 2002 film Divine Intervention – a surreal tragicomedy unfolding between Nazareth and Ramallah – won the Jury Prize and FIPRESCI Award at Cannes, making him the first Palestinian filmmaker to receive such honours. He continued with The Time That Remains (2009), a semi-autobiographical account of Palestinian life post-1948, and It Must Be Heaven (2019), which competed for the Palme d'Or and earned a Special Mention from the jury. Suleiman's influence extends beyond his own films. In 1994, he co-founded the Film & Media Department at Birzeit University, and he has taught and lectured across Europe and the Arab world. If Suleiman's cinema captures the stillness of life under pressure, then Michel Khleifi's work lays the foundation for that quiet to be heard. Khleifi is widely recognised as one of the architects of modern Palestinian cinema, pushing it beyond slogans into spaces of complexity, intimacy and contradiction. His debut feature Fertile Memory (1981) was the first full-length Palestinian film shot in the West Bank under occupation. Blending documentary with lyrical fiction, it introduced a narrative style that would become his hallmark, where personal memory and political history collide. In Ma'loul Celebrates Its Destruction (1985), Khleifi documented a village erased from the map, and in Wedding in Galilee (1987), he imagined a ceremony negotiated between a Palestinian family and Israeli military authorities, a film that went on to win at Cannes and San Sebastián, becoming the first Palestinian entry to compete at the festival. His later works, including Canticle of the Stones (1990), Tale of the Three Jewels (1995), and The Sprawling Route 181 (2003, co-directed with Eyal Sivan). In 2009, he returned with Zindeeq, a meditative feature on the impossibility of return. Where Khleifi documented the landscapes of Palestine with a rooted gaze, Danielle Arbid has navigated the dislocations of exile with equal intensity. Her invitation to the Academy recognises a body of work that has consistently defied genre and expectation, tracing the edges of identity, sexuality, and memory across borders. Though she never attended film school, she built a cinematic language of her own – raw, restless, and unapologetically personal. Her films often blur the line between fiction and documentary, narrative and essay, the intimate and the political. Her breakout feature, In the Battlefields (2004), premiered at the Cannes Directors' Fortnight. She followed it with A Lost Man (2007), and Beirut Hotel (2011), a political thriller banned in Lebanon but widely seen elsewhere. With Parisienne (2015), she turned inward, crafting a semi-autobiographical portrait of a young Arab woman navigating France. Then came Simple Passion (2020), based on Annie Ernaux's novel, which screened at Cannes and Toronto and confirmed Arbid's reputation as a filmmaker willing to embrace vulnerability and eroticism without filters. Alongside her fiction, Arbid has created powerful essay films and documentaries. As a visual artist, her photography and installations have been shown at the Centre Pompidou and the Venice Biennale, where she represented Lebanon in 2022. Her invitation to the Academy acknowledges not only her cinematic achievements but her refusal to be boxed in by nationality, genre or expectation. Syrian director Soudade Kaadan's invitation to the Academy marks a major milestone for a filmmaker who has, over the past decade, crafted a singular voice that resists spectacle while refusing silence. Her debut feature The Day I Lost My Shadow (2018) premiered at Venice and won the Lion of the Future award for Best First Feature. She followed with Aziza (2019), a darkly comic short about displacement that won Sundance's Grand Jury Prize. Then came Nezouh (2022), a luminous coming-of-age story set in besieged Damascus, told from the perspective of a teenage girl discovering possibility in the ruins. The film premiered in Venice's Horizons Extra section, won the Audience Award, and later received the Amnesty International Human Rights Award in Rome—making Kaadan the only Arab woman to win at Venice twice. Now based in London, she co-founded KAF Production with her sister to support Syrian independent filmmaking. Tunisian producer Habib Attia's invitation to the Academy recognises his role as one of the most influential Arab producers working today, someone who has consistently championed daring, politically engaged cinema across Tunisia and beyond. Born in 1983, since 2007 Attia has been the CEO of Cinétéléfilms, a Tunis-based production company founded by his father. Under his leadership, the company became a vital platform for ambitious Arab films that take creative and social risks. His long-standing collaboration with director Kaouther Ben Hania is central to this legacy. Together they produced Le Challat de Tunis (2014), Zaineb Hates the Snow (2016), Beauty and the Dogs (2017), and The Man Who Sold His Skin (2020), which earned Tunisia its first Oscar nomination for Best International Feature. Their latest collaboration, Four Daughters (2023), a hybrid docu-fiction starring Hend Sabry, premiered at Cannes and reinforced Attia's reputation for backing formally inventive and emotionally charged projects. But his reach extends further: he has co-produced films with Palestinian director Rashid Masharawi, supported Hinde Boujemaa's It Was Better Tomorrow (Venice, 2012), and helped bring the post-revolution documentary No More Fear (2011) to international audiences. He also produced We Could Be Heroes (2018), which won the Grand Prize at Hot Docs. Like Attia, Myriam Sassine has shaped the landscape of Arab cinema not only through the films she produces but through the spaces she creates for others in which to thrive. Her invitation to the Academy recognizes both her creative achievements and her visionary role in building institutions, networks, and festivals that sustain bold, independent filmmaking in the region. Based in Beirut, Sassine studied audiovisual arts and cinema research at ALBA, and began her career in 2005 working on international television formats. But her true impact began in 2010 when she joined Abbout Productions—a cornerstone of Lebanese independent cinema. There, she quickly became a key producer behind some of the most acclaimed films of the past decade: Costa Brava, Lebanon by Mounia Akl, 1982 by Oualid Mouaness, All This Victory by Ahmad Ghossein, and documentaries like Panoptic by Rana Eid and Amal by Mohamed Siam. From 2016 to 2020, she served as COO of Schortcut Films, co-producing international successes such as Félicité by Alain Gomis and Beauty and the Dogs by Kaouther Ben Hania. Through this cross-regional work, Sassine helped bridge Arab filmmaking with global platforms, ensuring that stories rooted in Beirut or Tunis could reach audiences from Berlin to Toronto. In 2016, she co-founded the Maskoon Fantastic Film Festival, the first genre film festival in the Arab world. Since 2021, she has also led the Beirut Cinema Platform, supporting emerging Arab filmmakers through development labs and co-production forums. The growing presence of Arab filmmakers within the Academy reflects a broader shift, one that recognises the richness, urgency, and range of cinematic voices coming from the region. It's also worth noting that this moment builds on earlier invitations extended to several leading Egyptian filmmakers in recent years. Among them are actress Yousra, director Amr Salama, producers Mohamed Hefzy and Karim Amer, composer Hesham Nazih, director Mohamed Siam, and Disney animator Yasser Hamed, each contributing in their own way to the evolving conversation between Arab cinema and the global screen. * A version of this article appears in print in the 10 July, 2025 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly Follow us on: Facebook Instagram Whatsapp Short link:
Egypt Independent
3 hours ago
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