Tips from the culture desk: A great week for film

With the first Cairene Cannes Critic's Week and the Goethe's annual film festival, there's a glut of good films to chose from in Cairo in the coming days. We help in the decision-making with some recommendations, and also suggest an exhibition of emerging artists in Alexandria and a re-run of a short, hard-hitting satirical play in Cairo.

Goethe Film Festival - starts Saturday

http://vimeo.com/104179101

The annual festival of largely German and some Arab features, documentaries and shorts has a run at downtown Cairo’s Goethe Institute before travelling to Assiut (October 7-8), Mansoura (October 14-15), Luxor (October 27-28) and to Alexandria in November.

One highlight we’re looking forward to is Christian Petzold’s Phoenix (2013, trailer above), a gripping German thriller set in the ruins of post-war Berlin, co-written with late experimental film giant Harun Farocki. It’s showing at 8pm on Monday with Arabic and English subtitles

There’s also another chance to see Sara Ishaq’s engaging documentary The Mulberry House on September 20 at 8pm. It’s set in Ishaq's family house in Sanaa during the revolution in 2011, and our reporter Rowan El Shimi has written that it offers much for regional viewers to relate to. Erwin Wagenhofer’s documentary Alphabet (2013), which argues against the modern education system.

September 12-21, with the program in German and Arabic here. Goethe-Institut Kairo is at 5 Bustan Street, downtown Cairo.

Cannes Critic’s Week - starts Wednesday

Organized by Zawya, Cimatheque, and the French Institute in Egypt, this five-day cinema festival brings eight features and several shorts from the past four years of Cannes Critic’s Week to downtown Cairo. Formed by the French Union of Film Critics in 1962, the week allows French film critics to celebrate first and second feature films by directors from around the world. Three films will be screened daily at 7:30 pm: one at Zawya, one at the French Institute, and one at Karim Cinema, but the schedule is not yet announced. Keep an eye on the event’s Facebook page.

*Update: The program has been released:

There’s a lot that looks good here, but highlights might include Jeff Nichols’ Take Shelter (2014), which Time Out has called “an undeniably major work: a flawed, dizzying, wildly ambitious attempt to cram all of America’s problems into one splitting basket.” And Boris Lojkine’s gritty Hope (2014), about a Nigerian woman and a Cameroonian man who meet while attempting to cross the Sahara and the Mediterranean to reach Europe, praised for its well-researched accuracy. Breathe (2014), a sinister tale of intense adolescent female friendship by French actor/director Melanie Laurent, is based on a book author Anne-Sophie Brasme wrote when she was 17, while Tribe (2014) is an apparently thrillingly challenging film by Myroslav Slaboshpytskiy from Ukraine, set in a school for deaf teenages and using a nonprofessional cast communicating in sign language, with no subtitles or music.

16 to 21 September. Zawya: Behind Odeon cinema, 4 Abdel Hamid Said, downtown Cairo. Institut Français d'Egypte: 1 Madraset al-Hoqouq, Mounira, Cairo. Karim Cinema: 15 Emad Eddin, downtown Cairo.

Plus: Zawya is also showing Youssef Chahine's dramatically weird Siraa fil Wadi (Struggle in the Valley, or The Blazing Sun) on Sunday at 7.30pm, in honour of the late actor Omar Sherif.

Ahmed El Attar’s The Last Supper - Saturday to Thursday

When Seif Abdel Salaam reviewed Ahmed El Attar’s latest play for Mada Masr last year, he said that "The Last Supper hits home with its shrewd and darkly comedic take on all that is wrong with Egyptian society today.” With a smart cast, music by artist Hassan Khan, and a set by Lebanese scenographer Hussein Baydoun, it has to be worth seeing even if you disagree.

September 12-17, 8pm downtown Cairo’s Falaki Theater. Doors open at 7pm. For the first two nights, entry is free and first come, first served, as the play will be taking part in the competition of the 8th National Theater Festival. For the following nights, tickets are LE30, sold at the American University in Cairo’s Falaki Entrance from three days before the show, from 4 to 9 pm. The has English subtitles on September 12 and 16 and with French subtitles on September 17. Children under seven will apparently not be allowed in. Call 01288721446 for more information, or visit the Facebook page.

Visual Music exhibition - opens Tuesday

This exhibition at the Alexandria Museum for Fine Arts showcases 34 of what the Facebook event calls “the most remarkable young artists.” The first group show in the museum’s Hamid Ouwais Hall, it is described as revealing both a shared identity or taste and a wide diversity. Curated (it is unclear by whom) in a “symphony-like manner in which visuals play the roles of musical instruments,” the exhibition will be worth seeing in our view for the sheer number of young artists participating, who include MASS Alexandria graduates Faten El Disouky, Nourine Shennawy and Esraa El-Naggar. It’s also a great chance to view the museum’s interesting permanent collection.

Visual Music runs until September 30. The Alexandria Fine Arts Museum is at 6 Manasha Street, Maharam Bey.