London's Nour Festival Where Egyptians Shine

The Nour Festival returns to London and continues to a shine a light on Contemporary Middle Eastern and North African arts and culture.

Returning for its fifth edition, the Nour Festival continues to build momentum with each passing year, bringing together artists from across the region to exhibit their art.  Over the past five years, the festival has grown from humble beginnings as an arts education programme based at Leighton House Museum to the all-encompassing, 32-partner and 20-venue strong cultural event. Lasting six weeks, this festival has no shortages of interesting acts and will have plenty of Egyptian representation.

Leading the way for Egyptian artists is Salah El-Brogy, who will be returning to the festival to perform the world premiere of The Moment, a solo dance performance he choreographed. El-Brogy is something of a veteran at the Nour Festival, who in past editions has presented both solo efforts as well as collaborations with British calligrapher Soraya Syed and musician Nitin Sawhney.

Aside from dance, Egypt will be in the spotlight with Amr Salama’s third feature film, entitled Excuse My French (La Moakhza). The film explores the story of a Coptic Christian child who fears discrimination after being transferred to a public school, resulting in him pretending he is a Muslim. This film will be one to watch as it stirred considerable controversy, which resulted in the film’s rejection by censors on three separate occasions before it was finally released.

Also being screened is a short film entitled The Orchard Keepers by Bryony Dunne, a multidisciplinary artist living between Dublin and Cairo. Released in 2014, the film explores the Bedouin community in Egypt's Sinai during politically uncertain times.

One of the most exciting segments to the festival is the showcasing of Women Behind the Camera, a section that will feature four women filmmakers and the challenges of filming in the Middle East. The panel discussion will feature Egyptians Nadine Khan, and Elham Shakerifar, as well as Iranian filmmaker/screenwriter Tina Gharavi, and Oscar nominated Yemeni-Scottish filmmaker, Sara Ishaq.

Running until the end of November, this festival is not to be missed as its diverse programming has a little something for everyone. Whether you are looking for a discussion on Arabs in Science Fiction to contemporary dance to films, there is plenty to be excited about, and as Egyptians, plenty to be proud of. 

To learn more about schedule and festival details please visit them here.