Tips from the culture desk: Not just another film festival in Cairo

This week we recommend an art exhibition, Kuwaiti music, a scatological farce from 1896, a party and lots of films — all in Cairo.

Evasive Routes exhibition opening — Sundayu

The third part of the Contemporary Image Collective's exhibition and events series If Not for that Wall is titled Evasive Routes and deals with restrictions on movement and forced displacement. Contributors to the group exhibition include Sudanese-born Cairo-based artist Amado Alfadni, Palestinian artist Mirna Bamieh, and Mada Masr's own Lina Attalah. There's also a parallel program of screenings and discussions, the details of which are yet to be announced.

Opens November 13 and runs through December 22. CIC, 22 Abdel Khalek Tharwat Street, 5th floor, downtown Cairo.

Panorama closing party — Sunday

The Panorama of the European Film comes to a close on Sunday night, but films continue until the last screening at 9.30 pm, and there’s an afterparty where you can dance all the sitting around in cinemas off and avoid the Egypt-Ghana World Cup qualifier. DJs Safi and Marc Wahba spin all night at Zigzag. Read our coverage of this year’s Panorama here.

9 pm, November 13 at Zigzag, 6 Qasr al-Nil Street, downtown Cairo. LE50 entrance.

Two Sunday film screenings

If you’ve seen everything Panorama has to offer, Sunday evening is also a chance to catch two very good yet very different films elsewhere. Hala Lotfy’s beautifully real Cairo-set film Coming Forth By Day (2014), about two woman (Arabic with English subtitles), shows at the NVIC in Zamalek followed by a Q&A with director of photography Mahmoud Lotfy. Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s powerfully gritty Ali: Fear Eats the Soul (1974), about a young Moroccan man and an older German woman in post-war Germany, at Darb 1718 in Fustat (German with Arabic subtitles).

Ubu Roi — starts Monday

Alfred Jarry’s 1896 play Ubu Roi gets an Australian-Egyptian makeover thanks to director Mohammed Hashem, playwright Muhammad Marros, visual artist Simon Fisher and musician Amy Frega. It will be interesting to see how this new Arabic version of the over-the-top anti-authority satire, which some credit with foreseeing modernism, dada, surrealism and the theater of the absurd, has turned out, as the original French is known for its weird mix of playgroung slang, wordplay and scatalogical humor.

8 pm, November 14 to 16, Falaki Theater, Falaki Street, downtown Cairo. Tickets LE40, available at Studio Emad Eddin Foundation from 10am to 10pm starting November 8, or on the door from 6.30 each night. Facebook event here.

The 38th Cairo International FIlm Festival — starts Tuesday

The Cairo International Film Festival is back, after some controversy, with a new ticketing system that should help with previous years’ organizational problems and a geographical scope that includes not just the Opera House grounds but also downtown's Odeon and Cinema Karim. The 31 Egyptian films showing include some new releases, such as Zamla Abu Zekry’s second film (after One-Nil), A Day for Women, which opens the festival, and two intriguing documentaries, Waheed Sobhy’s We Are Armenian Egyptians and Hisham Abdel Khalek’s A Footnote in Ballet History. There will also be 10 films by late director Mohamed Khan, Mohamed Diab’s Clash, and Hadi al-Bagoury’s Hepta. It's a large program, and while timings are yet to be announced, there's information on the website here. Stay tuned for our upcoming recommendations.

Zahed Sultan + Neobyrd — Thursday

Disappointed that his gig at Cairo Jazz Club was postponed for visa reasons in October, we’re excited Kuwaiti musician and visual artist Zahed Sultan is finally here, performing his recent audio-visual project Resonance. Mada’s Maha Elnabawi described his previous album as good, sultry and unpretentious, “even with its language-switching between Arabic and English and political commentary.” Egypt’s Neobyrd will also take the stage with his fun brand of electronic music.

10.30 pm, November 17, Cairo Jazz Club, 197 July 26 Street, Agouza, Cairo. See entrance and reservation rules on the Facebook event here.