National Theatre Festival opening ceremony coverage

CAIRO – 14 July 2017: The Minister of Culture, Helmy Nemnem inaugurated The Egyptian National Theatre Festival 10th edition, on Thursday, July 13 in the Grand Theatre in Cairo Opera House.

The opening ceremony started by a speech from Nemnem followed by a speech from Hassan Attia the festival head. The youth actor Tarek Sabry and the youth presenter Reem Ahmed presented the ceremony.

A group of veterans theatre makers were honoured yesterday like the great actress Aida Abdelaziz which didn’t attend and her son Sherif Ahmed received the award on her behalf, the renowned theatre director Samir el Asfoury, the poet Samir Abdel Kader, the critic and academic Mohamed Shiha, the name of the late director Hussein Gomaa and Sharjah Festival head Ahmed Abou Rahima.

After distributing the honouring awards the Festival’s Jury members went on stage and took a photo with the minister of Culture. The Jury members are Egyptian-Kuwaiti theatre critic Alaa el-Gaber, writer Mahmoud el-Salamony, great actress Ferdous Abdelhamid, art professor Rania Yehia, Director Nasser Abdelmoneam, professor and critic Mohamed Za’ema, young cinematographer Rami Benjamin and artist Fadi Fokeh. At the end the presenters announced the start of the opening ceremony play ‘Alaa el Din.’

The ceremony included as well the display of a documentary film about the Festival previous editions and the most important events that occurred in it and a speech from the head of the Theatre House Ismail Mokhtar.

The Festival opening ceremony witnessed the attendance of group of notable actors and actresses like Fardous Abdel Hamid, Magdy Sobhy, Abdallah Meshref, Ismail Mokhtar, the famous theatre director Khaled Galal among others.

Attia recounted that the Festival budget is LE 1 million ($55,866), while the value of the awards ranges from LE 15,000 to 35,000 He recounted that the Festival has chosen United Arab Emirates as this year’s guest of honour.

The Higher committee of the Egyptian National Theatre Festival previously announced during a press conference on Sunday that the festival will continue till July 27. Festival sections include a competition that consists of 20 competing performances.

The Festival programme houses as well the Critic Article Contest. In this contest young critics are supposed to submit articles analysing and reviewing a festival play to be awarded by a jury of critics. The 10th edition will going to display Special Theater segment, which will highlight street theatre performances.

Another segment named ‘’Selected Performances’’ will display plays that have participated in previous competitions. For the first time the audience who will choose the winning play in ‘’ Selected Performances’’ segment.

It is worth mentioning that the Festival 10th edition holds the name of late veteran theatre critic Nehad Selaiha, who passed away this year. Selaiha was a renowned Egyptian theatre critic and academic who was highly recognized by all the theatre makers. She wrote many books and articles in both Arabic and English language pertaining theatre theories, theatre criticism and translations of plays and critiques.