Arabic Theater Performances and VR Films: What’s New at the Ninth Edition of “D-CAF”

Mashreq for Film and Theater Production is preparing to launch the ninth edition of its one-of-a-kind festival in Egypt, the Downtown Contemporary Arts Festival (D-CAF), through a collaboration with Ismailia Investment and Real Estate Development, which is interested in restoring the architectural splendor of Khedival Cairo.

The festival will run from 20 March to 10 April, is scheduled to feature the participation of 25 countries from around the world, and will be held over 3 weeks. Festival events will take place at 22 venues in Downtown, with the participation of 32 ensembles.

This year’s D-CAF poster reflects the diversity, difference, and pluralism of Egyptian society, all of which the D-CAF Festival has embodied through its performers and audiences since the launch of its first edition in 2012.

Theater director Ahmed El Attar, director of the Downtown Contemporary Arts Festival (D-CAF), said during the press conference announcing the festival’s launch on Monday evening that the first performance would be “German-Egyptian,” combining theater and cooking. It is scheduled to be presented in Egypt and Germany at the same time, with a live broadcast from Cairo and Berlin.

The ninth edition features a large and diverse selection of contemporary artistic performances by numerous artists and ensembles from around the world, covering several fields: “theater, music, dance, cinema, visual arts, new media arts, and, for the first time, virtual reality VR film screenings,” across the various theaters of Downtown in the heart of Khedival Cairo.

The director of the Downtown Contemporary Arts Festival (D-CAF) added that what distinguishes this new edition of the festival is the sixth edition of the Arab Contemporary Arts Forum.

The forum presents Arabic performances only, shown for the first time. Theater and festival directors from various countries around the world are hosted to watch these performances and present them in their own countries. The participating countries will be Tunisia, Egypt, and Palestine. There will also be guests visiting Egypt for the first time from Chile and Brazil, as well as directors of American and European theaters. He noted that this year would see stronger attendance than in previous years.

D-CAF continues to support the “Art for All” initiative, launched by the festival in its seventh edition in 2018, which aims to integrate all segments of society into its various programs of theater, dance, music, and more, both as spectators and as performers through the “Arts and People with Disabilities” program. This year, D-CAF will feature events aimed at documenting the link between culture and environmental preservation.

Mashreq for Film Production

Mashreq for Film and Theater Production is an artistic entity established in 2007 and headquartered in Cairo. It provides a variety of services in entertainment, arts, and culture. Other artistic entities operate under Mashreq’s umbrella, including Emad Eddin Studio, established in 2005, and Temple for Theater Production, established in 1993. This is followed by Maktabi, a project for creative gatherings, in addition to the Downtown Contemporary Arts Festival D-CAF, established in 2012. What distinguishes all these projects is that they are located in the heart of central Cairo.

 

 D-CAF

• The Downtown Contemporary Arts Festival (D-CAF) is Egypt’s only international multidisciplinary contemporary arts festival. It takes place over 3 weeks in March and April every year at several venues in central Cairo.

  D-CAF presents local, Arab, and international performances of music, theater, dance, visual arts, and cinema by Egyptian, Arab, and international artists. In addition to highlighting Downtown’s cultural spaces and independent theaters, D-CAF opens up a new field by using unconventional venues such as historic buildings, shopfronts, alleyways, and rooftops to stage performances and host events and art exhibitions. This aims to engage audiences with performers and encourage them to interact with the city around them in a new way.

• Why Downtown?

  One of D-CAF’s most important goals is to revive Downtown and restore its position as a vital cultural center by making use of its social heritage and distinctive architectural style.

  The festival also benefits from the presence of many major and independent cultural centers in Cairo’s Downtown area and builds on the cultural gatherings created by those centers and institutes over the past decade.