Tips from the culture desk: A special art sale, a comics bonanza, music and film

After a hopefully relaxing Eid, you're ready to for some culture and Cairo has a lot to offer this week, including Cairo's first ever comics festival and a don't-miss gallery garage sale.

NVICinema: Monsieur Lazhar — Sunday

For this season of their Sunday film screenings, the Netherlands-Flemish Institute Cairo (NVIC) has put together a selection of education-related films, and this week’s sounds like a good one. A 94-minute French-Canadian film by Philippe Falardeau, Monsieur Lazhar (2011) has a traumatized middle-aged Algerian immigrant teaching a class of traumatized young children at a Montreal school. It has been called “quietly devastating” and acclaimed for its evocative performances. French with English subtitles.

Free, 7.30pm. Get there early because there’s limited seating. NVCI, 1 Dr. Mahmoud Azmi Street, Zamalek, Cairo. See the Facebook page here.

Asia Madani at Makan — Tuesday

Residing in Cairo since 2000, Sudanese musician Asia Madani fuses an array of influences from Egypt and Sudan. For their intense performances, the artist and her band use an array of percussion and string instruments to create a unique blend of Sudanese and reggae sounds, generally bringing the crowd to their feet. Madani has proved a prolific performer in Cairo, and has played Oshtoora and 3alGanoob music festivals.

Madani performs on Tuesday at 9pm in Makan, 1 Saad Zaghloul Street (in front of the Saad Zaghloul Mausoleum), Mounira, Cairo. Tickets sold at the door for 30 LE. See the Facebook page here.

CairoComix — starts Thursday

CairoComix bills itself the first comics festival in Egypt, and is organized by artists Shennawy (of TokTok), Magdy ElShafee (of the notoriously censored graphic novel Metro) and Twins Cartoon (Mohamed and Haitham Rafat). It has various prizes, screenings and exhibitions, including a main one by the late, great artist and writer Mohieddin ElLabbad.

The three-evening program 3As-Sotooh, held at the Talaat Harb Greek Club and organized with the Institute Francais, gathers comics authors and artists from Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan, Palestine, Syria, Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Libya and Iraq to discuss the comics scenes in these countries. They seek to find out whether discussion of publishing practices, productions, themes, and overlaps between comics and adjacent disciplines can define the outlines of what could be called "Arab comics". Mada Masr's own Lina Attalah and Andeel are two of the speakers invited.

October 1 to 3, 2 to 11 pm. American University, Al Kasr Al Aini, Cairo, Abdeen, Cairo. Tickets range from LE 20 to 100.

Mashrabia Garage Sale — starts Thursday

This is more than what you’d normally expect from a garage sale: 25-year-old Mashrabia Gallery is organizing a week-long selling exhibition of a large stock of artworks, art books, magazines, posters and postcards produced over the years. This is likely to include desirable artworks — which will range in price from LE100 to LE5,000 — by Mashrabia regulars such as Hany Rashed, Ahmed Sabry, Bassem Yousri, Hala ElKoussy, Mohamed Abla and Adel El Siwi, as well as the many, diverse publications produced by the gallery.

Free. Opens with a reception on Thursday evening at 7pm, and ends on October 8. The gallery is open daily from 11am to 8pm. See the Facebook page here. 8 Champollion Street, downtown Cairo. Telephone: +20 2 24 578 44 94