Cultural Journalism Workshop June 2008

Culture Resource (Al Mawred Al Thaqafy) held a workshop in the field of cultural journalism in Cairo during the period from 29 June to the 4th of July 2008. The purpose of the workshop was enhancing the knowledge of different cultural fields of the young Arab journalists who are specialized in cultural journalism. In addition to this, the workshop worked on improving their skills on both the academic and professional levels. Moreover, this workshop offered them the chance to exchange experiences, knowledge and it opened the doors of cooperation between them. The workshop took place during five days which included sessions and exercises in journalism which tackled different cultural and artistic fields. The final project was writing a paper tackling different cultural fields. For example, theatre ( the play “A’hwa Sada” by Khlaed Galal), cinema ( the movie “A’ein Shams” by Ibrahim AL Batoot), literature (the novel “ Al Fa’el” by Hamdy Bogleel), Prose text by Hossam Al Helaly ( The one after departure and the one before arrival) , Folklore ( “Al Zar” show by Mzaher group, Plastic Arts ( Mohamed Mahmoud Khalil’s Museum) and music ( the HipHop music festival). Six lectures were given during this workshop. The first one was about the most important factors of journalism given by the professor Ezzat Alkamhawy the Editor-in-Cief of Akhbar Al Adab. The second one was about the most important critical tools in Plastic Arts given by the critic Bassam Al Barony who is the founder of the Modern Arts Forum in Alexandria. In addition to this, there was an open discussion with the cinema critic Samir Farid about the tools of criticism of modern cinema. Furthermore, in the third day, the professor Nahid Seleha gave a lecture on theatrical criticism and Father Eily Kasarwani the Lenanese music researcher gave a lecture on music and media. At the end of the workshop the journalist Ezzat Al Kamhawy evalued the final projects of the participants in the workshop. The participants in the workshop were divided into working groups in order to work on creating a cultural paper discussing the different cultural events they visited during the workshop in different forms, like, an essay, a report and an analysis. Some of the participants’ works were published in Al Badeel newspaper and Akhbar Al Adab. Heba Saleh Egypt and North Africa’s reporter of the Financial Times was one of the trainers in the workshop. In addition to this, the journalist Said Mahmoud, the head of the cultural department in Al Ahram Al Arabi magazine, was one of the trainers. Moreover, the journalist Rashid A’ssa was supposed to take part in directing the workshop, who is a Palestinian living in Syria, however, he was prohibited from entering Cairo airport. List of Participants: Egypt: -Dina Heshmat -Mohamed Hesham Abyah Bahrain: -Hussein Al Marhoon Jordan: -Tarek Hamdan Mauritania: -Yacoub Mohamed Salem Syria: -Abdallah Al Halak -Abfallah Al Kafry -Wael Kadour -Yara Badr -Zaher Amreen Tunisia: -Kamal Al Rabahy Yemen: -Hanaa Al Khamary