Culture

Over the ages, and as far back as four thousand years, Egypt stood as the land where many civilizations have met. The Pharaohs together with the Greeks, Babylonians and the Romans have left their imprints here. Muslims from the Arabian Peninsula, led by Amr ibn al-A'as, introduced Islam into Egypt. Khedive Mohammad Ali, with his Albanian family roots, put Egypt on the road to modernity. The cultural mixture in this city is only natural, considering its heritage. Egypt can be likened to an open museum with monuments of the different historical periods on display everywhere.

Cairo Opera House Main article: Cairo Opera House

President Mubarak inaugurated the new Cairo Opera House of the Egyptian National Cultural Centres on 10 October 1988, 17 years after the Royal Opera House had been destroyed by fire. The National Cultural Centre was built with the help of JICA, the Japan International Co-operation Agency and stands as a prominent feature for the Japanese-Egyptian co-operation and the friendship between these two nations. Arigiculture is an important economic activity in Egypt's Nile Valley and Dela region.

Khedivial Opera House Main article: Khedivial Opera House Khedivial Opera House 1869

The Khedivial Opera House or Royal Opera House was the original opera house in Cairo, Egypt. It was dedicated on 1 November 1869 and burned down on 28 October 1971. After the original opera house was destroyed, Cairo was without an opera house for nearly two decades until the opening of the new Cairo Opera House in 1988.

Cairo International Film Festival Main article: Cairo International Film Festival

Egypt's love of the arts in general can be traced back to the rich heritage bequeathed by the Pharaohs. In modern times, Egypt has enjoyed a strong cinematic tradition since the art of filmmaking was first developed, early in the 20th century. A natural progression from the active theatre scene of the time, cinema rapidly evolved into a vast motion picture industry. This together with the much older music tradition, raised Egypt to become Hollywood Middle East and the cultural capital of the Arab world.

For more than 500 years of recorded history, Egypt has fascinated the West and inspired its creative talents from play writer William Shakespeare, poet and dramatist John Dryden, and novelist and poet Lawrence Durrell to film producer Cecil B. DeMille. Since the silent movies Hollywood has been capitalising on the box-office returns that come from combining Egyptian stories with visual effects.

Egypt has also been a fount of Arabic literature, producing some of the 20th century's greatest Arab writers such as Taha Hussein and Tawfiq al-Hakim to Nobel Laureate, novelist Naguib Mahfouz. Each of them has written for the cinema.

With these credentials, it was clear that Cairo should aim to hold an international film festival. This dream came true on Monday 16 August 1976, when the first Cairo International Film Festival was launched by the Egyptian Association of Film Writers and Critics, headed by Kamal El-Mallakh. The Association ran the festival for seven years until 1983.

This achievement lead to the President of the Festival again contacting the FIAPF with the request that a competition should be included at the 1991 Festival. The request was granted.

In 1998, the Festival took place under the presidency of one of Egypt's leading actors, Hussein Fahmy, who was appointed by the Minister of Culture, Farouk Hosni, after the death of Saad El-Din Wahba.

Four years later, the journalist and writer Cherif El-Shoubashy became president.

For 33 years The International Festival has awarded dozens of international superstars, including John Malkovich, Nicolas Cage, Morgan Freeman, Bud Spencer, Gina Lollobrigida, Ornella Muti, Sophia Loren, Claudia Cardinale, Victoria Abril, Elizabeth Taylor, Shashi Kapoor, Alain Delon, Goldie Hawn, Kurt Russell, Susan Sarandon, Greta Scacchi, Catherine Deneuve, Peter O'Toole, Charlize Theron, Julia Ormond, Mira Sorvino, Stuart Townsend, Alicia Silverstone, Priscilla Presley, Christopher Lee, Irene Papas, Marcello Mastroianni, Salma Hayek, Lucy Liu, Samuel L. Jackson, Tom Berenger and Omar Sharif, as well as directors like Robert Wise, Elia Kazan, Vanessa Redgrave, Oliver Stone, Roland Joffé, Carlos Saura, Ismail Merchant and Michelangelo Antonioni, in an annual celebration and examination of the state of cinema in the world today. The presidents of the Festival since it was founded in 1976 are Saad El-Din Wahba, Hussein Fahmy and Sherif El Shoubashy. This year the festival a milestone of 30 years in an annual celebration and examination of the state of cinema in the world today.

Cairo Geniza Main article: Cairo Geniza Solomon Schechter studying documents from the Cairo Geniza, c. 1895

The Cairo Geniza is an accumulation of almost 200,000 Jewish manuscripts that were found in the genizah of the Ben Ezra synagogue (built 882) of Fostat, Egypt (now Old Cairo), the Basatin cemetery east of Old Cairo, and a number of old documents that were bought in Cairo in the later 19th century. These documents were written from about 870 to as late as 1880 AD and have now been archived in various American and European libraries. The Taylor-Schechter collection in the University of Cambridge runs to 140,000 manuscripts, a further 40,000 manuscripts are at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America.

Religions

Most residents are Sunni Muslim. Al-Azhar University is the leading authority of Sunni Islam. The number of mosques in the city is growing. Most Christians are Copts. Until his death in March 2012, Pope Shenouda III of Alexandria was the leader of the Coptic Orthodox Church, whose residence is in Cairo. Cairo has several synagogues, but only few Jews remain after Israel was established, and persecution intensified. Tension between members of different religions has increased recently.